


Five Times Mike and Peter Had to Wear a Costume…and One Time They Chose To

by Lauren_StDavid



Series: Early Beechwood [3]
Category: The Monkees, The Monkees (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Consensual Kink, Dubious Consent, Early Days, Explicit Sexual Content, Guns, M/F Sex, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Recreational Drug Use, Restraints, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 65,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_StDavid/pseuds/Lauren_StDavid
Summary: Elements of their rl personalities have seeped in.Huge thanks to the Sunshine Factory website https://monkees.coolcherrycream.com/ for all the fantastic info and pictures! I couldn't have written any of these fics without that lovely treasure trove to mine.And many thanks to 70mtt for sparking this series idea and suggesting some of the costumes!
Relationships: Mike Nesmith/Peter Tork
Series: Early Beechwood [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466542
Comments: 125
Kudos: 31





	1. Late Winter, 1965 part one

**Author's Note:**

> Elements of their rl personalities have seeped in.
> 
> Huge thanks to the Sunshine Factory website https://monkees.coolcherrycream.com/ for all the fantastic info and pictures! I couldn't have written any of these fics without that lovely treasure trove to mine.
> 
> And many thanks to 70mtt for sparking this series idea and suggesting some of the costumes!

Mike knew he’d bonded with the rest of the Monkees—even if he _still_ wasn’t convinced about the name—when he realized he preferred hanging out with them, at the pad or on the beach or anywhere at all from Beechwood to Sunset, to being with the guys at Cal’s Garage and Auto Parts. 

The garage and workshop, so far along Montana Avenue that Cal could describe it “right near Brentwood” on the phone—and Dawg mouth it along with him, behind his back—had been a kind of refuge and he’d been grateful for the work, company and place to be it had provided him with. He was very glad he’d gotten into conversation with Louie at a West Hollywood club and presented himself here, when Louie was planning on leaving the place.

Hell, he’d even been thankful for the drab brown coveralls that came with the job. They said _gainful employment_ and _I got some place I belong_ , both things a relief after the lean month or two during which Mike had felt both very visible and also invisible in the LA crowds. The mechanics overalls provided the right sort of anonymity, especially as his said the word _NAME_ below _Cal’s Garage and Auto Parts_ on the right breast pocket, result of a SNAFU somewhere along the ordering line.

Seeing the word now in the small mirror hung on the office wall, as he leaned in through the window from the garage, rather than going in through the door, made him grin. It read EWAN, if he squinted, in mirror writing—that was a real name, right? The mirror also showed him scowling a second later. He didn’t do that as much as he used to. But someone had pushed the radio farther back on the desk than usual, making him have to stretch on tiptoe to reach it, tall and long-limbed though he was. 

Mike’s radio, they called the transistor, although he hadn’t bought it. It was associated with him, like the big comb on the mirror’s ledge was known as EZ’s comb. Yeah, he’d admit he was a bug on tuning that transistor to the best station for whatever time of day it was, and placing it up high on a pile of tires or pallets so the sound spread around good. Music was just that important to him…although he could have lived without Herman’s Hermits, playing when he hit the station he was searching for. 

“ _A Must to Avoid_. I’ll say,” he muttered, then sniggered again at the memory of Davy and Micky singing “He’s-a- _musc_ -u-lar-boy,” to Peter, claiming they thought those were the lyrics. Micky, in particular, did surprised and aggrieved innocence like no one else Mike had ever known. Well, the loon had been an actor. Still was, on occasion. Had to make a Kellogg’s Sugar Pops commercial every five years, some crazy-ass clause in an old contract from his child star days. Davy was still making a finger-gun at him and exclaiming, “Pew-Pew! Shot with sugar!” as a riff on an old one.

Least he got paid for that. Micky had been background in a cold drink—no, that was the back-there term. Here it was soda. Or pop. Mike never remembered. Soda pop then—commercial just last week…and had gotten paid in soda pop too. Mike was still mad about that, and that the icebox was full of cold drink…as were the cupboards and even a shelf in the garage, the kid having taken advantage of the _help yourself to as much as you want_ the background cast had been told. Huh, he took advantage of a fair bit, that Angeleno did. But not of Peter. Didn’t make fun of him either, now, not once Mike had learned him. The misheard lyrics serenading had been in fun. And a bit serious—Pete’s sports and hobbies sure gave him muscles, and in all the right places. Micky called him Big Pete, and—

Mike dragged his attention back to the radio, and the song. It rhymed _trouble_ with _double_ , and the tune chugged along in a steady der-der der der der der-der rhythm, with a gearing up for the chorus. Both lyrics and melody were obvious, unremarkable, banal—not the kind of song he wanted to write…and yet a hit. Well, some people liked following the path more taken, he reflected. He’d been tempted to go down such a route, when he started here, and not just because Cal’s full-time mechanics graduated to a set of coveralls in their size and with their actual name on them. 

Yeah, he’d actually thought of adding to his air force vehicle maintenance certification by taking a mechanics qualification at the L.A. Trade-Tech college. Cal had promised him a full-time job, or, seeing Mike was shrugging at signing on the dotted line here, enough shifts to meet the requirement for the two-days-a-week release course, and the ex-forces bursary Mike would get would’ve made it affordable. He…hadn’t, in the end, any more than he’d finished college back in San Antonio, or even the air force, really. 

“Least this time I didn’t start then quit,” he told the Dave Clark Five, who took over from the Hermits. “And yeah, it really is _Over and Over Again_ —and what is this, British Invasion hour? I got the one-man version of that back at the pad, man!” But the drumming, which drove the song, reminded him of Micky’s strong-armed approach to the sticks and the skins. And he was glad now he hadn’t committed to this—this life, this path. _This garage._

Cal had been kind, with that offer, and in offering him work in the first place, and had even let him sleep in the storeroom when he’d been…between accommodation…on two separate occasions, but Mike was hardly in this place at all these days, though. He mainly covered slack periods, like now, when Dawg and EZ were delivering new his-n-hers Buick Rivieras to some actor and his wife—and had gotten all spruced up, thinking they’d get in a movie or meet actresses while on the lot—and Vin was, no surprise there, skiving off. 

_Skiving._ Mike caught himself using the Davyism. “Be careful sharing with him or you’ll be speaking in a British accent and sound phoney,” he warned himself, in a more refined and breathy tone than his actual one. His mother had delivered that warning? advice?—hell if he knew—the last but one time he’d spoken to her, six months back, He hadn’t cared about her edicts then. He’d cared even less the last time they’d spoken, three months ago, and paid them no mind at all now they weren’t speaking at all.

What would be next, if it was Swinging London Hour, or whatever the boss jock was calling it? “Beatles,” he guessed, waiting to start work until the song started. Ha. No. Kinda the opposite side of the coin, the Rolling Stones, with this song a cut above the cookie cutter. Not so predictable, it had voice and acoustic guitar start, its strings coming in on second verse, and nice wordplay in the title, _As Tears Go By_. This was more the kind of twist on the expected that was Mike’s bag.

Anyone would think he’d only come here to listen to the radio. Well, he didn’t get more than a token payment for covering these dead periods, but he did get time, space and tools—and parts—to work on their wheels. Not his through-thick-and-thin Triumph, not Mick’s crazy-small Bug and Davy’s even crazier-little Autobianchi Bianchina minicar: today he was working on their Ford Woodie wagon, formerly Peter’s surf-wagon that he’d donated to the group as a whole. The guy was all about the caring and sharing. Another thing Mike had to stop Micky—and Davy—taking advantage of.

The vehicle was very Peter, in form and content. Despite knowing the garage was empty of anyone but himself, Mike took a quick look around before he breathed in, inside the wagon, taking in the scent of its owner. _Eau de Peter_ , if he wanted to be fancy. Ocean and beach, mainly, so that was what, salt and sand, but that woody or woodsy fragrance that was more than his cologne—Mike figured it came from his instruments, too, his guitars and banjo. That herbal note, he’d learned, was the rosin Peter applied to the bridge of his banjo, to stop it moving around when he played hard. The tickle of lemon, barely felt at the back of the nose, was some fancy citrus soap Peter had gotten as a gift. Paper was another note to Peter, and maybe to the car, then—Peter usually had a book in his hand, or a journal or magazine near to hand. 

And that _sometimes_ smell that was a mixture of all of the other, herbal and woody and smoky, well, Mike knew what _that_ was. Knew it well after his birthday last month, when Peter had personally initiated him into the art of dope smoking. Turned him on, as the phrase went. “Guess I’m round now, Well, reckon I can’t be a square no more,” Mike said again now, repeating the really witty thing he’d said then…which actually might not have been as funny as it’d seemed at the time.

He laughed out loud then, not so much as his own joke this time as at the Beatles’ aptness, in finally coming on…with _Day Tripper_. “They got themselves some good timing,” he acknowledged. And good songs. The other A side of this was still at number one. Had it been at the top of Billboard when he’d last worked here? Curious, wanting to check, he retraced his steps to the office and leaned in again, wanting to twitch the wall calendar down to read the written-in names of who worked which days.

Out of habit he checked his hands first, then remembered he hadn’t started yet, so no danger of leaving oil smears on Miss February…or any of the scantily clad ladies handling…nuts and _screw_ drivers and vice grips and wire _strippers_ and trying to _jack_ and _pump_ and _lube_ … Oh, the company knew what they were doing, all right, in producing the annual RIGID Tool calendar. Cal’s crew spent a lot of their break time debating the…merits of the various ladies. 

“That chica ain’t never held a sprocket wrench in her life!” Mike said, in imitation of Len’s declaration about Miss November, one that had amused Mike so much he’d shared it with the other three back at the pad, describing the scene for them.

“Well, with her vast ta-ta…talents, she doesn’t have to, mate,” Davy had opined.

“And she can hold mine _an-y-_ time she wants to,” Micky had added. He’d held out his hand, which had puzzled Mike. “What, you didn’t bring the calendar home? ’Cause I need to see for myself, Mikey!”

“You got enough magazines already that help you get RIGID Tools.” Davy had had the last word.

Mike thought his favorite chick was the tall brunette who was not pulling off her latex gloves by gripping the tip of one finger between her teeth like Misty did with her evening gloves during her high-society-lady-is-a-slutty tramp number at All Girls, All Day, but snapping them on, tight and firm, staring at the camera dead on, all business. 

If it wasn’t her, it was the darker brunette ripping off a long strip of duct tape from the roll, holding it up high and taut between both hands to do so, again, staring out from the photo, in charge. Mike…kinda liked that in a chick…when he was in the mood for it, which he kinda was at the moment. Had been for a week or so, he acknowledged.

Thinking he’d better take his mind off it for now, although he decided he was going to do something about it later, he slid under their Ford wagon that he’d driven up on the ramps. It’d been hiccuping for a few days now and been slow to start today—Mike suspected air bubbles in the fuel line. He doubted there was an actual leak, but felt around the joints for any wetness, pushing at the metal ones and clips to check for any looseness. He was about to reach for the flashlight when an “Ahoy!” from behind and above him sounded.

“Hey —oh. You ain’t easy.”

Feet in thick-soled ankle boots and legs in tight denims jumped aside as Mike slid out on the creeper. Whoever the guy was, he pronounced EZ like _easy_. “Nope. I ain’t easy. Ain’t Dawg nor Vin neither,” he added, not into playing the guy’s game…whatever it was. He stood, taking in the rest of the guy from the top down—his light-brown or dark-blond hair darker with all the grease that shaped into its scrunched-together quiff, his brown eyes…his shiny new leather jacket. 

“A Texan.” The guy sounded like he was trying not to make a question or inquiry out of it.

“Ya got me. And yeah…” Mike pointed to his head and while the client was looking there, slid his wool hat from his pocket and smoothed it on. He usually wore it when working or riding his bike to keep his hair out of his eyes, and it served as a visual answer to the question sure to be asked: if he was a real, honest-to-goodness, bona-fide Texan, where was his—

“All hat…?”

Mike narrowed his eyes. He knew the second half of that expression. The guy didn’t finish it. He might…one day, Mike kinda thought, when he’d grown more into himself. “You want something?” he asked, his customer service about on a par with Dawg’s, who Cal didn’t let approach clients.

“I was after…a service,” the guy replied, his eyes on Mike.

“With EZ?” When the guy eyed him, his mouth half-opened as if to speak, Mike clarified, “EZ was the mechanic working on your…vehicle.” Not his place to judge. And he wasn’t a hypocrite. “Your…bike.” And his naming the vehicle had the guy’s eyes opening, like his mouth. 

It wasn’t that hard to work out. Dawg liked to pigeonhole the vehicles that came in under such categories as _new divorcee’s first alimony payment screw-you, ex-husband Corvette_ and had labelled the motorbike _the rich kid trying to piss off parents Suzuki_. Mike didn’t think so. Not when said parents, namely Daddy, judging by the name and signature, had _bought_ the Suzuki X6 T20. 

“Graduation present?” Mike factored in the guy’s age and clothes and doubled down on his guess.

“Yeah. Well, bribe. Ya know, stick around, do as I’m told, stay straight…and narrow.” When Mike didn’t respond, the kid asked, “You new?”

“I been around.” Mike was kinda getting into this. It was fun to watch the guy’s upbringing, the ‘make superficial conversation with people you meet’ that had been drilled into him war with his attempt to carve out his own personality…and natural…predilections, Mike felt.

“Like it here? It’s good?” The guy gestured around, a little twitchy.

“Oh yeah. I’m in high cotton,” Mike drawled.

“Oh…” The guy held out his hand to shake. Mike held up both of his, palms out, to show he couldn’t. “I don’t mind getting a little sweaty,” the guy said.

“This is oil.” Be a bad scene if Cal knew a grease monkey’d dirtied up a client. Mike tore off a sheet of heavy-duty wiping paper from the roll, cleaned up and shook, taking an extra second with the guy’s hand. The calluses interested him. “Whatchya learning there—guitar or bass?”

“Wowser. Good eye. Or hand.” The man stepped back a little, digging in a pocket.

“A lemon tree. Oh, nothing.” Mike waved a hand. Something Peter said. Mike would figure it—and him—out, one day.

“Bass, yeah. Not long started. You play?”

“Nope.” He didn’t play bass. “Hey.” He pointed at the pack of cigarettes the guy had taken out. “You can’t smoke here, man!”

The client shook the cigarette he’d tapped half-out back into the pack. “You a stickler for rules?”

“When they stop me getting killed. We got flammable liquids all _over_ here.” Mike rapped on the wooden pallet that held the radio and a tin of combustible fluid.

“Oh, am I interruptin’ somethin’?” The guy smirked, stroking the calendar Mike had absentmindedly left out here in the garage, on the top next to the transistor. 

Mike wouldn’t blush. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Vin finished checking over the Suzuki, and he’s taken her out to start the running in.” By swinging by the store where his chick worked, and taking her for a ride with him, rather than to the imaginary dental appointment she’d gotten time off for. “You know, making sure the valves, cylinder bore and piston rings are okay on the surfaces they’re in contact with. Checking the rev range and speed too.” 

That last was an educated guess, based on Vin tending to drop down to a crawl when something caught his attention, and act like he was gunning for a Speedway World Championship medal if not. “Back any time now, if you wanna go outside and wait? You can smoke there,” Mike added.

“Sure. You due a smoke break?” The guy took a step forward.

Mike shook his head. "Don't smoke." He didn't...tobacco.

“Get you a coffee from the machine? If you indulge in that.”

“Sure,” Mike surprised himself by saying. It wasn’t the guy’s persistence, he didn’t think, as much as that the garage felt…wrong, or too much, all of a sudden, and he wanted to get out. No, maybe it was the coveralls? He felt smothered in the costume and unzipped the top, shrugging out of the sleeves, relishing the little flare of awareness in the guy’s eyes at his tight tee and tight jeans. Well the guy would have to imagine the pants and that they were tight—only the waistband showed. He took the radio with him, turning down the volume, as they walked through the garage and out the vehicles’ entrance and exit, the way this guy must’ve come in, to the small lot out front.

“Black or cream? Oh, that Triumph that was here the other day was yours?” The guy pointed to where it’d been. 

“Cream.” They rarely had any kind of cream or creamer or even milk back at the pad. Mike nodded yes to the second question, unsurprised that the guy had linked Mike’s T-shirt to the bike that’d been parked in the staff area. He was certainly copping an eyeful of the shirt. Mike took a deep breath, out in the Santa Monica morning. Under the oil and rubber of Cal’s, beyond the heat and dust of Montana Ave, was the sand of the beach and the water of the ocean. “Freedom,” he muttered.

“You reading my mind?” The guy spoke around the cigarette he’d lit and drawn on in the half a minute he’d been at the drinks machine. He handed over a plastic cup of coffee. “This is my last week.”

“Ya got called up?” _Poor bastard._ Mike set the radio down on the arm of the small bench near the door to reception.

“No, thank Christ.” The man sat on the bench, exhaling a plume of smoke. “I gotta start a job. Daddy-o’s orders. Not saying it compares. I know. But yeah, tie, suit, full nine square yards.”

Mike took a swallow of the coffee and hitched a leg onto the bench, his weight on it and his elbow on his thigh. He kinda wished he’d slipped his coveralls off all the way: this pose showed off his legs, and in his jeans… “There’s suits and suits. Ties and ties. Ya gotta wear ’em, wear ’em your own way. Your own style. Don’t let ’em wear you. Look at these guys.” He turned up the transistor volume.

‘“Life is very short, and there's no ti-i-i-i-ime…”’ Guy could kinda sing a little.

“Yeah, they told the Beatles to wear suits, so they did.”

“The short collarless jackets?”

“Bum freezers.” Mike grinned. That was a Davy expression that made him laugh. “They based them on the uniform for some really establishment school. The most expensive private school in England, or probably the world. And then they wear those black jackets that look like capes, man!”

“And those really fancy jackets over black turtlenecks.” The guy gave a slow nod. “Smart as paint. And you can’t get much smarter than a cape and a top hat. Much sharper.” The guy’s voice was as slow as his nod had been. He stretched out an arm, maybe imitating one of the poses on the album cover.

“Yeah, so when squares say ya gotta sharpen up, you go so sharp, ya got the edge on any square.” Mike was applying that principle to their band uniform he was designing and having made. “Hey, here’s Vin coming now.” Thankfully not with Darlene riding in the bitch seat.

The guy stood and ground his cigarette butt into the concrete. Out in the sun that had him shielding his brown eyes, his hair showed itself as the blond it would be, left to itself and with no dye or pomade darkening it. “Think I can take delivery of my bike today?”

“I’d say so.” Mike dumped their empty cups in the trash can.

“I wanna celebrate! Thought I’d go to Riker’s. You know it?”

Ray’s Bikers Bar, known as Riker’s, up off Mulholland. It was a dive bar, not affiliated with any club, least of all Hell’s Angels, but was full of tough, sparky mamas who knew what they wanted and went after it. Mike nodded. He’d been before and thought…he’d go again. “Yeah.”

“So, no names, no pack drill?”

It took him a second to snap back to the here and now, and that the guy was asking his name. Mike let his raised brow and head tilt say _you first_. The guy shrugged and pointed a thumb at his chest. “Jerry.”

“Mike.” Not Tex. That was what they still called him, off and on, even now, here at Cal’s, and Mike had accepted his _nome de garage_ as his price of entry. Or maybe as his stage name, in the same way his no-name overalls were his stage costume. The guys, the other Monkees, called him by his name. Always had. There, there’d been no rite of passage and no disguise. He’d just simply arrived and simply was. “ _Jerry?_ ” he queried, the name catching at him. The guy didn’t look—

“Jez?” The guy shrugged.

Nah, that wasn’t quite it, either. Well, he wasn’t quite there yet, but Mike appreciated that the blond was trying, and wondered what this bass player’s name would be once he _did_ arrive at himself. Mike shrugged his way back into overalls and as NAME, EWAN, or Tex, suitably attired—or costumed—went back to work.


	2. Late Winter, 1965 part two

He hung around at Cal’s, even after Dawg and EZ had come back, undiscovered as movie stars and with no starlets on their arms, and was back at the pad only long enough to swap Pete’s car for his own bike, gather their cash from its hiding place, and pay their rent. He didn’t even change clothes, gazing coolly at Babbitt until the angry old man stopped complaining that kids today dressed with no respect, and went straight to Riker’s in his jeans and jean jacket. His outfit was topped off with Louie’s jacket, as it was known at Cal’s, where the battered old leather motorcycle jacket, more zips and wax than leather, hung.

Well, it was the uniform at that joint, that stood half-hidden on one of the little roads off Mulholland, the ass end, in Mike’s opinion, for all it was mid-Mulholland. The roadhouse was…unpretentious, to say the least. Old and dirty, to say the most. Mike had been in cantinas where patrons went outside to take a leak, so having to do that, or walking past the backs of guys pissing like dogs against the trees ringing the parking lot as he made for the door didn’t bother him none.

He was used to loud music and voices, so the volume that reached out and grabbed him when he opened the door to the overgrown wooden shack didn’t faze him. None of the smells, from the spill and stick of old beer to the grease and salt of french fries, struck him as bad. The dimness had surprised him the first time he’d come. Louie had brought him here, as if replacing himself with Mike all round before leaving to go back home to Arizona and marry his girl.

It seemed darker than before this time, when Mike went in, and him peering through it into the place’s depths to nod _hi_ to those he knew made him knock into a table, jarring his thigh hard, and dislodging something from its top. “Hey, sorry,” he said to the couple at the table, grabbing for the coat before it hit the floor. It’d probably stick to the wood if it landed. He went to hand it to the chick at the table, rather than replace it wrong, and the texture and cut of the garment had him smoothing his fingers down the garment and unfolding it to see it.

“It’s a Leafe?” he asked, wondering.

“Uh, no, it’s a coat!” the wise guy at the table, a guy Mike thought he remembered having seen before, said. “How much _leaf_ you been smoking, _hombre_?”

“No. I mean…” Mike gave up trying to explain to the guy. “May I?” He directed his request at the chick he could barely see, sitting as she was in a pool of shadow, presuming the jacket was hers. Getting no reply, he pushed the jacket open enough and held it close to his eyes enough to see the label. Yeah, Leafe. The F was a leaf, and the second E some insect, or so it looked like. He liked those suede shirts, jackets and coats. With a nod, he laid the jacket put back, with a final stroke of its softness.

“Done, cowboy?” the guy inquired.

“ _You_ are.” The girl’s voice, coming from the patch of shadow, was matter-of-fact, yet ringing with steel.

“Huh?” came from the idiot.

“Zé, get lost.”

If he says “Huh?” again— The guy did, before Mike had done forming the thought,

“Fuck. Off.” The girl jerked a thumb between herself and Zé, pointing it away. “Now.”

He, did, shaking his head and sloshing the bottles of beers he grabbed and took with him. The girl moved around the table a little, into the patch of light from a lamp on the wall, and Mike got his first sight of her. Oh, she was pretty, her big blue eyes the first thing Mike noticed. Second thing his hungry gaze fell on was her short, choppy black hair, intrigued at how longer locks and feathery wisps fell across her forehead, onto her cheeks, behind her ears and down her neck, as if she cut it herself. The slant of the light falling across her made long fans of her eyelashes on her pale cheek, or maybe those were shadows cast by her uneven bangs. She sat still and he waited for her to speak—he knew she would.

“How did you know that was a Leafe?”

“What, ‘you’ as in someone like me, a poor?” Mike replied.

She tilted her head back and kept it there, to stare at him through narrowed eyes, the gleam of light catching the four or so silver earrings she had in one ear. A round ball, a star, a half-moon, a cross, all flush to her skin, not dangling and swinging. “I’m not into playing mind games.”

No. Mike regretted his instinctive reaction. She wasn’t a round, bouncy little-girl-type, all circles from the high bump of her hair to her perky tits and springy ass, grinding a guy down with all that _you’re so silly, you’re so wrong, don’t you know that, you must by crazy to think that_. Micky gotten entangled with one of those in college and Davy more recently.

“And I got something on my mind, I say it,” she told him, her voice level and low, her blue eyes still maintaining unblinking contact as she spoke.

Yeah. He felt she would, not like the new wave of waif chicks, with their long straight hair and eyes made big with makeup, silently watching and listening. He’d come across that type at gigs and in the studio when Pete did session work, and seen their little sisters along Sunset, the Striplings, with their homemade necklaces and buttons bouncing as they declared every single thing around them _groovy_ and _boss_ and _fab_. Again, Davy had gotten mixed up with one of those.

“And I don’t repeat myself.” The command in her voice curled around him, the _last chance_ ring of it clear as a bell, one whose chime he acknowledged with a slight nod, seeing several guys sitting at the bar looking over, probably waiting their chance.

“No. Well, see, there was an interview in _Fabulous 208_ with that French actor, the bad boy of cinema, and he had a real nice long jacket on in the photo. I liked it so I looked at the credits to see. Oh and in _Queen_ last month, in a feature on what the bold and the beautiful will soon be wearing or listening to or watching—something like that—one thing was a shirt from the same brand.”

“I have to say your reading material is very European for a Texan.”

Mike grinned. “My roommate’s English.”

“English or British?”

“English. He uses all three Bs.”

Her head tilted for a second, before she replied, “Brolly, bum, and blimey?”

“Not exactly. More like bugger, bollocks, and bloody hell. He ain’t posh.” He wondered at her familiarity with the terms and if her unaccented voice revealed roots or family, say, over the pond. He stuck out a hand to the woman. “I’m Mike Nesmith, and I ain’t posh, either.”

He hadn’t realized how sweet her lips were, like a plump little heart, until they pressed together and she smiled. She shook his hand. “Shayne.”

Mike reluctantly let her hand go. A person’s hand told their story, and he couldn’t get a read on hers, yet. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“No.” It came quick and sure. “I’ll buy you one.” She stood, and she was taller than he might have expected. Taller than average. And strong with it, the corded muscles of her arms revealed by her shirt’s rolled-up sleeves and the lean strength of her shoulders glimpsed where the too-big garment fell away from her neck and upper chest. “What you having?”

“Oh, I’ll have whatever you are, ma’am.” He made it into a further-reaching statement and enjoyed watching her lips part in a grin of understanding, one that showed she had a slight tiny gap between her front teeth.

“That’s promising.” Again, her big blue eyes held his gaze, direct and clear. “Don’t lose the table,” she ordered, slapping her open palm on it as she strode off, uneven locks of hair bouncing around to the end of her neck.

Dragging the other stool closer to hers, Mike sat, establishing his—their—claim to the table and smoothed a hand over the tabletop. It was large and round but irregular, dark with a much lighter striated edge all around, sort of mushroom-like. He even thought he caught that field and forest scent he associated with mushrooms. Oh, it was wood. _Of course._ He ran his hand over it and it wasn’t exactly hewn or planed, the feel different to the beer barrel table with a checkers board top where he’d sat with Louie that time, on whiskey barrel stools. They’d been too low for a long-legged person like him, and he’d wished then they’d gotten the wagon wheel table next to them, which was higher and with more space underneath. There was one covered in little metal bottle tops, its matching stools too. This was nicer.

“It’s fossilized wood, from a petrified tree. I wonder what scared it?” Shayne returned, leaning and placing two glasses of beer and two shots on the table. She sat and pushed one big and one small glass nearer to him. “Does your English roommate call this a boilermaker?”

Mike was still working out her previous comment and getting the vibe of her low, steady voice, trying to work out its few inflections. Maybe one non-US parent? “Oh, I don’t know. My LA roommate calls it a beer and a shot. If he can get his hands on it. And back home, it’s a two-step.” But he copied Shayne’s way of downing it, drinking enough of the beer to dump the shot glass inside the beer glass. “Thank you.” He held the glass with its glass within it up in salute. “And I didn’t lose the table.”

“I like this one.” She stroked the table as if feeling the grain, or counting its rings. “It’s halfway to that granite slab tabletop over there that looks like a gravestone. Near the Ouija board table.”

Mike hadn’t seen that one but grinned at the idea. “It could help to have yes, no, and a pointer to hand. If you ain’t sure you should have another drink, just ask the table.”

“Always a yes.” Shayne clinked her glass against his. “No need to ask the spirits about spirits. Or if you should have the fries here.” She shuddered.

“Always a no?” Mike broke off as weird blue lights raked across the place, cutting a neon-blue swathe through the bar and its clientele. “What is that?”

“Like an alert. Counting down to the live music—twenty minutes, then at five-minute intervals, I think. So you can wind down your games of pool and horseshoes back there in time.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder, her lean muscles flexing.

Mike risked looking uncool by peering into the back of the bar. Doorways probably led to the game rooms and yeah, there was a stage. He did a doubletake and laughed. “That drum shield is outta sight! Big enough for an entire group to play behind.” She let him figure it out. “Ah. They do?” Well, he wouldn’t be asking here about gigs, if they had to play from behind bars.

“Do you _really_ want to talk about the bar?”

Mike didn’t. He might have come here looking for something easy and dirty, but found he wanted to get to know this unusual woman, who he didn’t recall seeing on either of the two previous occasions he’d been here. But, well, chatting and finding common ground and even maybe mutual friends? Not what this place was about, and by the next light, an orange flare, they were siting so close, their knees were bumping. By the next, a white glow, he was stroking her hands, guessing what she did for a living. Artist. Painter and sculptress, maybe, by her short nails and old patches of tough skin and new small cuts. Mechanic, she said, peering at his nails in turn. She rubbed at the tips of his fingers.

“And musician. Guitarist.” He picked more than plucked, but…

“Right. Because if those calluses are from jacking off, you must practice a helluva lot.” The next sweep of light, neon red, paled in comparison to the light of challenge in her blue gaze.

Mike didn’t bother dueling her with words, not when he could tilt her chin toward him with one finger, slide his hand up her jaw and caress her earlobe with his thumb, rubbing over her row of earrings, one by one. He cupped the back of her neck and drew small whisper-soft circles with his fingertips at her nape, scratching up into her hair with his nails.

He was close enough to inhale her scent. It was dusty and spicy, tannin, leather, and tobacco, and didn’t smell like a fragrance or cologne, but something perfuming her all over, in her hair and her clothes. His half-grin was crooked as he hovered at her lips, then brushed her mouth with velvet-soft strokes, barely touching her lips with his. She’d sat still so far, but a shiver ran through her when he captured her mouth in a slow, sensual kiss. Mike took his time, exploring every curve of her heart-shaped mouth with his lips, licking every crevice with his tongue tip, nipping at the soft flesh with careful teeth.

He pulled away just slightly, and, when her lips parted in a sigh at the loss, teased the inside of her mouth with the tip of his tongue. When she opened in a gasp, he thrust his tongue inside and swept it over every inner surface. And when she moaned, he pushed the kiss deeper, stroking his tongue to hers, blatantly testing any resistance, then challenging her to make the next move. Shayne pulled back and in the same movement, rose, and Mike, seeing her intent, grasped her narrow her hips to seat her on his lap.

She didn’t swivel to sit sideways on, but sat to face him, draping a leg either side of him until she got close enough to cross them behind his lower back. Shayne kept her eyes on him as she situated herself and the cool blue fire of her irises, as much as the tilt of her head, said _over to you_. Giving her a tiny _message received_ nod, Mike kissed down her neck, a trail that ended at her pulse, where he licked and sucked, feeling it speed under his tongue and lips. He thought it sped a little more at him laying a trail of tiny kisses down her throat, making each one more intense until he nuzzled under the neckline of her shirt.

She choked back any whimper she might have made when he cupped her breasts. Shayne wasn’t wearing a bra, so his thumbs made her nipples furl into tight buds within seconds, and the rusty-sounding gasps she gave in response to Mike rubbing back and forth, his touch firmer and more insistent with each pass, grew louder. He raised his lips from the soft skin of her upper breast to seal his mouth across hers…at the same time he pinched a nipple between forefinger and thumb, setting up a quick and dirty rhythm of squeezing and releasing in tandem with the thrusts of his tongue into her mouth.

He ignored his body’s inevitable reaction to her squirming in his lap, realizing she wasn’t wearing panties, either, when her wetness soaked through her thin cotton pants. He focused on increasing the pressure, the pleasure-pain he was subjecting her body to with each constriction-release—that is until he locked in his fingers in a vise grip and her squirms became writhing and she ripped her face from his to heave in a breath, her eyes closed. And when she opened her eyes, the blue now smaller and the black now bigger, that was when Mike switched to her other nipple, subjecting that to the same treatment.

In most chicks, this was about seeing what they could take…and showing them they could take that little bit more, making them come to crave it, crave _him_ , but he didn’t think that was the case here. He got the feeling this was more about what Shayne would let herself take. But whatever, he didn’t let up the torment, or cease bucking up into the grinding down on him he’d bet she didn’t know she was doing. Not until a strobe light rained long ice-blue flickers and flashes down on them and an accompanying siren wailed, announcing the music was about to start…and covering any noises Shayne made as she came, her body an impossible arch, her head thrown far back.

As he’d expected, she pulled away immediately after, didn’t settle in for him to wrap his arms around her, hold her through any trembles and quivers. “ _Jesus_ , Mike Nesmith.” Her voice and tone were a little rawer, the _Mike_ sounding closer to _Mark_ , somehow. “Like, bugger, bollocks, and bloody hell! You got me so fucking wet first that I went off like a fucking roman candle! Help me straighten my legs out—my knees are weak.”

“That was so goddamn hot,” Mike husked, assisting her.

“So hot, I need a cigarette.” Back on her stool, Shayne tugged a pack from her pocket, shook it, and swore on finding it empty.

“You liked that, huh?” He made it neutral, not smug.

“Yes. And I want more…like your mouth on me.” She took a gulp of whiskey-infused beer and pushed a feathery-looking lock of black hair from her eyes.

If the kiss hadn’t been a test, or an audition, was this supposed to be a challenge? A lot of guys weren’t into that. “Here?” Mike asked.

“No.” With a barked laugh, she slammed her glass down. “You’re coming with me. I’m taking you back to my place.”

“I got my bike here.” Mike made a vague gesture.

“Good. We’ll need transport. Wait—” She locked a strong hand around his wrist as he went to stand. “You better know before you decide. I got…individual preferences.”

He was so horny, his dick trying to drill a hole through his jeans, and the haze of lust swirling around him meant her words penetrated late. “Like…?” Not that he wouldn’t have agreed to anything.

“Let’s just say I like to toy with guys.” Shayne sat back, running a short fingernail down the gap in her front teeth.

But she wasn’t into playing games. Not verbal or head games. And hadn’t said play. _Toy…_ “So you like to set the pace? To lead? Be on top. _Top._ ” He figured it out as he was talking, her tiny tells of reactions helping. “ _Dominate_. Have a guy—”

“Break.” With a wicked smile, she crushed her fist down on the cigarette packet. “And the bigger and better they are”—she tipped her head at him—“the harder they fall. Can you handle that?”

“Oh yeah.” Mike reached out a hand to angle her head to his, holding her steady for his brief, hard kiss, all thrusting force that would subdue most women…and inflame some, rarer ones, before he dropped his hand and leaned away. “I’m all yours…to command.” _To try to break._ The gleam to her eyes and quirk to her mouth said she’d caught that. “I’m willing to put myself in your hands,” Mike husked.

“Oh, it’s not just my hands. It’s my toys, too.” Shayne licked lips that were slightly swollen from Mike’s kisses.

“What kind of toys we talking?” Mike finished his beer and replaced the glass dead next to hers.

“All kinds. The kind that make a grown man cry…then cry and beg for more. For _harder_. For _deeper_.” She gave him a second to fathom her meaning, see the sensual, _filthy_ picture her words were painting. “What d’you say now?” Her voice was still level, but held a breathier note than before.

“I’d say…” Mike pulled her to her feet and close to him, to whisper in her jewelry-adorned ear, “That I ain’t had a good ass-fucking in months. I’d also say…I don’t beg.” And the wall light that spotlit her showed that if her smirk had been wicked before, it had crossed over into _illegal_ now. And Mike knew the grin on his face was as big as the one it wore when they smoked dope. He felt as high now, on anticipation alone.

Shayne felt for her jacket, and Mike, raised right, took it for her and helped her into it, climbing after into his own much more basic one. The music had started, to more jeers and catcalls than cheers and applause, as he held the door open for his companion. Before he could exit, a guy came in.

“Hey—oh.” Cal’s client from earlier seemed blonder- and messier-haired, and even in the too-new-for-their-own-good leathers, not a Jerry or a Jez as he looked from Mike to Shayne then back to Mike again. “Right. Maybe…next time?”

“Maybe.” Mike’s answer came deliberately noncommittal and laconic.

“Well, enjoy.”

 _Intend to._ Mike caught up with Shayne, who was bumming a cigarette off another chick. Outside, in clearer light than the murk of Riker’s, he saw she was older than he’d thought. Maybe even a little older than him. Still prettier than a Texas bluebonnet though. Oh, of course! That was the shade of blue her eyes were. He felt pleased he’d worked it out. “You got a bike here?” he queried, patting his.

“No, I’m taking you home on yours.” Shayne released a plume of smoke into the night.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m riding.”

“What?” That would mean he’d be riding bitch! _Oh._ His lips tilted in a smile. “Making me your bitch already?”

“If the ass fits…” Shayne’s laughter sent up a crazy smoke signal. “Don’t worry—you can cling on if I take the curves too fast for you.” She cupped her tits in illustration.

Did she want to watch him struggle? He did a little—to get his keys from his tight pocket. He pressed them into her hand, curling her fingers over them. And groped her tits most of the way back to her place on Crescent Heights, just above Sunset, at the very end of the Strip. She slowed when they passed what looked like a short row of small boutique type stores and pulled up behind the back of one, cutting the engine and running up a short flight of steps to a second-story door. Inside, Mike, desperate as he was for her, gazed around in curiosity.

He’d guessed artist, but maybe she was a… He didn’t know the best word, rejecting ones from his childhood like _dressmaker, seamstress, and needleworker_. They were too minor, and was something like _modiste_ too prissy? Whatever, this was her workspace, or workshop or studio—smelled like she did. Or she smelled of it.

His eyes or expression must have asked the question, because she nodded, and he made for the long bench holding sheaves of drawings and pieces of leather. No— _suede_. With a “heads up!” Shayne tossed him a cloth and he wiped his hands before he touched the soft, inviting fabric. A couple of those tailor’s dummy things that’d freak Micky out were draped in half-finished or not-even-started jackets and shirts, all different.

A long ledge on a wall bore framed pictures of celebrities or models and advertisements, and peering over at them showed Mike they were all wearing or modelling garments made not just from the suede he couldn’t stop stroking, but from the same designer or design house. He didn’t know if it was seeing a large wall plaque of the Leafe label, its _F_ a leaf and the _E_ next to a bee, or Shayne’s face that clued him in.

Anyone else, he might have asked if they were timing him, see how long he took to work it out, to realize that these were her clothes, she was the designer, but it was obvious she was more interested in his reactions to the material. “Wow.” Mike picked up a length of supple suede with fringing down it, and made the connection between it and a design clipped to a little block next to it, one barely started, of a jacket. “This would be the front?”

“The yoke, yeah.” Shayne draw a line across her chest to demonstrate.

“Be so groovy down the sleeves too. Like Indian—”

“Native American.”

“Sorry. But yeah.” Mike liked thinking about images and what statements they made. About looks, in general. He’d designed the band costumes, which were a world apart from this. “Imagine this on stage. Be amazing…” He wrapped the suede around his arm, so the fringing flew when he mimed playing maracas.

“Not guitar?” Shayne’s brow creased. “ _Maracas?_ You?”

“Depends on what feels right. Or feels good.” Mike grinned. ‘“Oh, you can’t judge a daughter by lookin’ at her mother,”’ he sang, in his best Bo Diddley.

‘“And you can’t judge a book by looking at its cover.”’ Shayne was grinning, too, as she curled a hand around round the back of his neck to bring him closer, plucking the length of suede fabric from his arm with her other hand and replacing it on the work bench. Mike got in a final stroke of it before Shayne pulled him into her. “It’s my surname,” she muttered, against his lips. “Leafe. You wanted to know.”

If he’d wanted to reply, ask more, he had no chance, with her firm yet lithe body pressed to his, as heated and insistent as her tongue when she licked the seam of his lips, tiny flicks that turned into longer laps, until she demanded entry into his mouth. He obligingly opened for her, just as his shoulders dipped and hunched for her hands to shuck his leather jacket from them, then tug his jean jacket free too. Following her, and following her directives, the trail of clothes he left in his wake was testament to the fact that he was naked by the time he reached her bedroom.

***

He twitched and batted at the stream of cool air blowing onto his face. “ _Mfff?_ ” he muttered.

“Mike _._ Mike Nesmith. _Nesmith_!”

The female voice jerked him awake with a start, to see Shayne lying facing him, propped up on one elbow. “ _Fuck,_ ” he grunted: the jerking had hurt. He made sure his next move was more careful, with him being the sort of all-over sore and specific-places aching that bore witness to Shayne’s expertise and technique and the thorough—no; _ruthless_ —way she’d deployed them.

“Did that.”

Yeah, she’d allowed him to…after fucking him. He tried to find any bit of his body that wasn’t strained. What the hell time was it? Goddam-early o’clock was the nearest he could get.

“You fell asleep.”

Her voice was level, not a condemnation or accusation but, sleep-slow and sex-stupid, Mike couldn’t parse it. “Didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” Shayne rolled onto her back, withdrawing her gaze.

He got it. “You kicking me out?”

“I told you.”

Yeah, she had. Mike inched his legs to the floor, fighting a wince as he sat. He was not looking forward to sitting his ass on his motorbike for the ride home. She’d laid out her rules while he was…laid out, rules not so much to do with the physical as the emotional—or lack of it. “And you’re sure?” Because her once-and-done rule _sucked_.

“No more questions. You had your one question last night.”

“Doesn’t count if I didn’t ask it!” burst from him in a sharper tone than he’d intended—he’d taken an incautious normal-length-stride step toward his T-shirt…and it had hurt. Yep, sitting astride was gonna sting like a son of a bitch. _Worth it, though._ The mirror mirror on Shayne’s wall showed the smuggest smirk of all…on Mike’s face. Along with that _I got laid so fucking good_ glow. Which made her one-night rule unfair. “You _told_ me your surname,” he reminded her. He hadn’t asked. Hadn’t even known he had the right to only one question, like he’d gotten busted. But he hadn’t. He’d gotten laid. He tried to un-swirl his morning-crazy hair.

“Next door along.” She gestured when he turned to her, his forehead creased. “The bathroom.”

“And I didn’t ask that question either!” he pointed out to her as he quit the bedroom, needing the john. He gathered the clothes he could see en route and made sure the door was closed fully and the faucet running so if he yelped when he took a piss—and he probably would after the pounding he’d taken. His prostate felt _bruised_ —he wouldn’t be overheard. Yep, he had to clench his teeth against a howl.

Shayne, her folded arms securing her silk robe around her, her choppy hair more spiky than it had been, and black smudges of kohl or Rimmel around her eyes, was waiting for him when he came out after having washed enough to wake him up. “I hear ya,” she said.

Mike hoped he wasn’t blushing. He tried to walk normally as she escorted him along the short corridor that seemed a lot longer now he was basically doing a walk of shame. Wince of shame. Shamed wince. He grabbed for the reins of his stampeding thoughts.

“You should have another question,” Shayne clarified. She straightened her shoulders and, Mike betted, stiffened her spine, preparing to have her privacy invaded, her defenses challenged, her life choices queried. He saw his T-shirt and pulled it on.

They were in her workroom now, and, gathering his denim jacket and Louie’s jacket, Mike tried to marshal his thoughts. There was so much he wanted to know about her, her rules, her absolute, fanatical antipathy to relationships—to _dating_ , even—but the place fascinated him so much. He took a cautious sniff of the chemicals—tannin, he guessed, or stuff used for texturing—and ran a forefinger over the huge picture of the label she used to denote her brand. “Why the bee?”

“Why the— _Fuck_ , Nesmith!” Shayne rolled incredulous eyes and shook her head. “It’s from the Leafe coat of arms. You know what they are? They don’t really have ’em here.”

“Yeah. Like a family crest?”

“Yeah. Leafe’s an Irish name. My father’s side of the family.” She’d sounded like she was spitting out stones when she’d started talking, but now her words tumbled out like pebbles splashing down a waterfall. “A bee means industriousness, and usually to do with garment making. My father’s family have always been leather workers.”

“I see.” And he also saw that neat little fringed piece again. He examined his hands, wiped ’em off, and stroked it again. Imagined wearing it. Piece like that, so eye catching and unique, you’d have to wear plain clothes with it. Casual stuff, so the jacket didn’t wear you. He held the fabric to his arm again, almost without volition, and imagined singing and playing at the mic, wearing the jacket Shayne had started to design.

“Nesmith.” She’d gone from using his first and last name—well, that was how he’d introduced himself to her—to his surname fairly early on in their…play. “How much cash you got on you?”

“I…twenty bucks.” He worked it out, recalling their stash, and deducting their rent and the tab at Pop’s and the little grocer shop he’d paid off, and coming up with what was left. _For the month._

“Give it to me.”

Shayne used that tone of voice he’d been unable to do anything but obey, and that, coupled with her hand held out, had him scrabbling in his pocket and handing over the twenty-dollar bill. Andrew Jackson looked a lot more glued than Mike felt about the transaction.

Shayne, her robe hanging open to reveal her pale body and those tits that were trying to give Mike a hard-on, took an old wooden cash box out from under the long desk and shut the bill in it, then pulled out an old ledger. She used the strip of leather that was attached to the book, marking a page, to open it. The strip ended in a pen, and Shayne wrote something on the page. “Okay. Done. The deposit on your jacket,” she clarified, nodding at the still-unfinished design next to the fringed swatch.

“Wut?” was the best Mike could manage, his brain still not working right.

“The fringed one inspired by traditional Native American attire. I want you to have it. I can’t sell it to anyone else, not now you put a down payment on it. Come back in a month for it.” A tape measure had appeared as if by magic between her hands and she held the strip across his shoulders, then down one arm, nodding to herself.

“I don’t got the means for clothes like that.” Mike gestured at the photos of clients in their suede finery, at the pictures of models and Beautiful People from magazines. He’d never seen any prices given for them, but exclusive designs like hers, made from such delicate fabric that she probably treated and prepped herself? The entire process must take so many hours and all that would be factored in.

“Well, you just paid a third.” Shayne shot him a raised eyebrow look as she scribbled in the order book then put it away with a thump that said _subject closed_.

“Shayne… Wow.” Mike dropped to sit on a stool at her bench, regretting it the second his abused ass made contact with the wood. “I just don’t know what to say. Well, except thank you, of course. Thank you very much. But are you sure?”

“I don’t repeat myself.” The steel in her tone and light in her eye had him standing again. “Just like I don't _do_ repeats.”

“And you couldn’t make an exception, ma’am?” He used his sexiest, southern-est voice and—too sated to feel shame—even mimed tipping back a hat.

“No, because another one night isn’t what you want. It’s not what you’re really looking for, Mike.” She came close enough to cup his cheek, and Mike rubbed his morning-whiskered face into her palm. “You’re looking for a relationship and it’s not where I am. Who I am.”

“What? What’s that now?”

“What you’re looking for. A connection. A one. An other. And you know something else? You don’t want that to be me any more than I do.” She dropped her hand and pointed her chin at the door.

Mike brooded on her words all the way home. He’d dated—some—since being in LA. Had hook-ups, too. More of the latter. He— Was already in Beechwood, his journey quick on the emptier roads, and he cut the engine before he reached the pad, pushing the bike the last bit, mindful of not pulling right up to the garage and waking any sleepers within the house. Equally so, he squeezed around to the side of the pad, rather than go in the front door and risk it making noise. Dealing with it sticking and jamming was next on his maintenance list.

Well, he wouldn’t be waking Peter up, because Peter was out on the sundeck. And doing something so _Peter_ that Mike just stood and stared, stared at the blond sprinkling water over himself from a watering can, like he was a goddam flower or plant. Mike stared some more, glad the overgrown bushes—cutting them back was four items down on his maintenance list—hid him. Peter liked the sun and was often up and about sometime in the morning…

Mike’s brain snagged on that last thought. No, _line_ —he could hear it, in that ballad he was writing for Davy. Only it wasn’t, it was for Micky and _that_ was the title and—

“Mike? _Michael?_ ” Peter took a few steps forward when Michael remained still, with his mouth open.

Mike closed his mouth and forced his feet to work, to join Peter, who ran his gaze over the biker’s jacket Mike was wearing. Yeah, here at the pad, it felt like a costume. Or camouflage. _And you need no longer wear a disguise._ The phrase, the line, sounded so real, so much a part of the song that Mike looked around for Micky, thinking he must be singing it.

“You okay?” Peter asked.

“Yeah. Yeah. Just need pencil and paper. You know?”

“Yeah.” Peter laughed.

He would know. Did know. Had a music notation notebook.

“Near the phone.” Peter pointed.

Mike tugged off his leather jacket and let it fall to the deck. “Here.” He beckoned Peter to close the gap between them, so Mike could tug the zipper of his wetsuit up the last couple inches, where it stuck.

“Need a pencil for this suit too,” Peter muttered, close to Mike’s face.

Mike, who usually dismissed such utterances as Peter-isms, was finding himself more and more inclined to file them away to figure out at some point. Whatever, he nodded to show Peter the wetsuit was zipped. Peter nodded his thanks, no needs for words on either side, and swung away.

 _Sometime in the morning…_ Mike, walking in and shaking out his hands from where he’d had them on Peter’s chest, the herbal aroma of Peter’s incense stick still clinging to him, tried to force his brain to churn on those lyrics, but what Shayne had said stuck in its gears. A relationship. A connection. An emotional attachment. Yeah. He…did. He was at the phone now, reaching for a pencil, and his fingers closed around the napkin from Pop’s…on which he’d written down the phone number of that girl he’d gotten talking to when they’d played there two nights ago. Debra _._

Their playing there had started to draw a bit of a crowd, young chicks mainly, to the early evening pop music and pizza pie hours, although Debra hadn’t known about that, much less been there for that. She was there by chance. She’d…seemed nice…even if he couldn’t recall the color of her eyes. Not the startling bluebonnet of Shayne’s, for sure. Warm brown, that got more sort of _amber_ , almost, depending on her mood? Why…would he think that? Yeah… He was ready to go steady, as the saying went. He’d call her as soon as she’d likely be home, after work.

Mike headed for the bathroom and their sporadic shower, wishing there was enough hot water and that if there was, they could afford it, for a long soak in the tub. He could do with one today. At the sink, he tutted and turned Pete’s fancy soap over, so the raised sticker it bore was on the bottom. Why didn’t people realize that was what you did with soap, rested it on the label to stop the soap leaving any residue on the dish or, as here, the back of the sink?

He sniffed his hands after touching it, detecting the lingering smell of the neoprene of Peter’s wetsuit along with the soap fragrance, then, on impulse, uncapped Peter’s shampoo and took a sniff of that too. _And from lemons to apricots._ He stood, letting the hot-ish water he’d turned on swirl all the aromas around him

Stepping gingerly into the shower, he tried to categorize what all the notes, the salt of the ocean, the sand of the beach, the herbs of the incense, the lemon of the soap, the apricot of the shampoo added up to. Oh yeah. _Home._ They smelled of home. Huh. A huge smile curved Mike’s face as he showered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates sporadic at best but more probably not likely during July due to a HUGE project, so please send groovy vibes for that to get that done quickly AND with creativity and brain power to spare for ficcing!


	3. Spring, 1965 part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just pervy silliness.  
> Or silly perviness.

“So?” Mike asked, nodding into the full-length mirror he’d dragged out of the No-Room closet and that they were all staring into. He tried to keep the pride out of his voice just as he tried to stop himself preening, from turning a little to see how the red garment looked across his shoulders from the back. No one…was answering. He tried to catch their eyes one by one, but they seemed to slip away. Admiring the outfits, Mike wanted to think. “What d’you think?” And from pride to begging, in one quick second.

“They’re…bright,” Peter the peacemaker said, stroking a red sleeve.

“Yeah and this color, this shade, goes with all _our_ coloring.” Mike gestured at the three brown-eyed brunets, ranging from chestnut to toast to raven, and the brown-eyed blond who made up their group. “And plenty of freedom in the cut of the sleeves for playing.” He was beginning to feel like a salesman in a gents’ department, working on commission, as he extolled the virtues of the shirts he’d designed and had made.

Davy was in front with the other three behind him, Mike in the middle as he was tall enough to see over his head. “Are they…a bit tight?” Davy queried, smoothing the fabric of the gray slacks over his ass, then his crotch. It didn’t actually need much smoothing to reveal the…contours beneath.

“Versatile.” Mike ignored that and continued, fingering the front of his shirt. “Can be worn in or out, open or closed…”

“You’re talking about this bit, yeah?” Davy fingered the eight buttons. “Nothing…lower?”

“Of course ‘this bit.’” Mike stepped in between the guys and their reflections, pushing the wheeled mirror back a little to do so. He undid the top buttons on the red shirt. “The placket or plastron.”

Davy laughed and mimed sword-fighting. “The plastron’s that little jacket you wear under your over-jacket in fencing, for safety.”

“It’s a part of a turtle too!” Micky high-fived Davy. “It’s the nearly flat part of the shell.”

And if him pulling his head inside the neck of his shirt and screwing up his eyes was supposed to be a turtle, Mike would—

“It’s the ornamental front panel on a lady’s bodice,” Peter threw in.

“Why, Mr. Tork, I do declare!” Micky fanned himself.

“It’s the front piece of a shirt! Come on!” Mike looked from one to another and flicked the buttons on Micky’s, him being nearest

“They’re very eye catching.” Peter threw him a smile.

“Eye _watering_ , y’ask me.” Davy wriggled, still adjusting himself. “You sure they’re the right size?”

“Mine is, thanks.” Micky posed open-legged, highlighting his groin. Not that the cut of the pants didn’t anyway.

“I think it’s the rise.” Davy continued studying intently.

“No, I’m on the slack. In slacks.” Micky high fived himself. “Well, and briefs.”

“Maybe you’ve got your underwear in a bunch, making that bul…bunch.” Peter flicked a glance down at Micky’s bulge.

“Not gonna be your problem, is it?” Davy asked Peter. “When was the last time you wore any?”

Peter wrinkled his forehead. “Probably…when we went for the fitting for these costumes.”

“ _Uniforms_. They’re unif— Wut?” Mike’s head spun. “You don’t…you ain’t… Micky! Stop standing like that with your hips stuck forward! You’re shoving up against the front panel… and there’s not much extra room sewn in.”

“But the tailor asked what side we dressed on!” Micky turned from one to the other of them. “I remember ’cause I got in that zinger about ‘in between’ – that I dressed in between the beds in the bedroom. Remember?”

“Tryin’ to forget,” Mike muttered. The tailor, a theatrical costumier and old connection of Micky’s, must be used to him, but…

“He asked that because of your…rise.”

“Davy—”

“Which is the measurement from the crotch seam to the top of the pants.” Davy ignored Mike’s yelp. “The front rise being the measurement at the front, and the back rise is the measurement around the back…side.”

Yeah, he had to get one in too.

“Like it said in January’s _Petticoat_ magazine, ‘Much like how a suit jacket hangs from the shoulders, trousers hang from the waistband, and the rise determines where the waistband rests.’” Davy nodded in satisfaction and…cupped himself.

Mike betted no one did that in _Petticoat_. Hoped not, anyhow. “That’s as may be, but can we _please_ stop talking about rises in our pants?” Last thing he needed was to get one right here and now.

“I say, hats off to Michael for all the research and hard work he put into designing these.”

Especially with Peter saying things like that, about taking things off, and with Mike knowing what he’d…taken off, and didn’t wear. Peter gave a slow twirl, arching his back to peer over his shoulder at his back view. Especially with Peter _doing_ things like that, sticking things like _that_ out.

“Okay, so I gotta ask the designer— is the tight cut and lack of extra room on purpose?” Micky tried a few more crotch thrusts, morphing it into his Elvis impression. Mike wished he wouldn’t and that it didn’t. “’Cause I _like_ it,” Micky finished, shooting Mike a cat-like grin.

“Oh, well, you know,” Mike tried to hedge. He created a diversion—he hoped—by handing them all their belts. The big buckles, Davy’s a bit smaller, in proportion, would also draw attention to the—

“Crotchular area.” Micky buckled up. “Or groinular region. Yeah, that’s better.”

Mike had studied and thought long and hard— _oh, God_ —about their image and what would go down well— _oh, Lord have mercy!_ —with the chicks who were likely to come—and see them, he resolutely finished the thought. What would enhance their performance. _Merciful Lord in heaven._ He took in a long, slow breath. Okay, so in thinking what they’d look like to their audience, he hadn’t factored in what they’d look like…to one another. To him. Some or one more than the others. He blew out the breath, upward to cool his sweating forehead, and snapped his belt on.

“So it was?” Micky might have a pug-dog face, but he had a bulldog’s tenacity to go with it.

“Yes, all right!” There. Better out than in. Mike closed his eyes for a brief second. These pants were cursed, man! “And less fabric is cheaper,” he mumbled. “But the outfits are comfortable, huh?”

“More so for Peter.” Davy laughed and clapped him on the back. “Like they say, no ball room, free ball it, man!”

“Oh, was that in the _Swinging_ London column?” Peter asked, his eyes open wide in innocence.

“I got blue band shirts ordered too,” Mike blurted out. And he had his eye on a black velvet version too, after seeing that bolt of fabric at the shop.

“But—”

“Ya gotta speculate—”

“To accumulate,” Micky finished for Mike, doing another hip thrust in illustration.

“And it looks like it is, all right." Davy cast a glance at Micky's...accumulation. "And I think the extra they skimped on here, they added here.” Davy cupped his groinular region again on the first _here_ then lifted a leg like a dog about to pee on the second, to show his pant leg was longer at the back than the front.

“That’s on purpose!” Mike protested.

“’Cause his legs are longer at the back than the front?” Micky went to ruffle Davy’s hair in the way than would earn him a Manchester elbow in his LA ribs, but stopped to examine his own pant legs, bending over like an acrobat, his head between his ankles. “Hey wait, mine too! Davy, whatever you got, it’s catching!”

Mike fought not to shove his hands into his hair and pull. He’d torn out a bit out when they’d gone for the fitting. “Put the boots on and you’ll see,” he said, ungritting his teeth and indicating the boxes from the bootmaker. “They’re Flamenco—god dang it, Beatle—boots and the backs of the pants are angled longer than the front to create the perfect break over them.”

“Race ya.” Micky nudged Davy who tutted and rolled his eyes, as if Micky’s behavior were juvenile, making Micky turn away in shame…which was when Davy tugged his boots on, double quick. He’d be used to that from his jockey days, Mike guessed. His forehead creased and he looked from one to another as a hush descended on the group.

Oh. Oh. They were all staring at themselves and at each other, a little open-mouthed, seeing the effect of the full costume. Mike watched it settle on them, saw Micky raise a hand to flatten his hair, Peter shake his head to settle his bangs, Davy lean forward and make a kissy face at himself in the mirror. Then, Mike included, they all stood straighter, shoulders back, making the clothes part of them, not letting the costumes wear them.

A slow, crooked smile bloomed, spreading from Mike’s face to the other three’s. The others were the most infuriating, craziest, maddening, weird…grooviest cats ever, and together, in their Imperial red eight-button shirts and boot-cut light gray slacks, all four of them looked so boss, so cool…so… _Monkees_.

“Yeah.” Mike’s slow nod was also taken up by the others, and they all turned to him as one. “C’mon. Let’s go show Mrs. Purdy what we’ll be playing at her daughter’s wedding in. Good that our first gig in our band costumes is a happy family celebration, huh?”

He ignored Davy’s skeptical look, and let his own remind the l’il biscuit that Mike knew what he and Shelley, the bride to be, had gotten up to at Shelley’s engagement party. That had been their first paid gig, not that long after they’d all started living here. Mike chivvied them toward the door. He wanted to smack himself upside the head for not thinking that the vibe, the well, sexual energy, the hormones, the foursome generated would not just project to the audience but run rampant among the four of them…more blatantly than before. Like now, with Davy claiming that these pants settled the argument they’d been having about which of them had the best ass. _What?_

“…athletically rounded,” he tuned in in time to hear Davy saying, as he slapped his own butt cheek.

“Not everyone likes such full buns,” Micky disputed.

“And hardly _anyone_ likes flat as a pancake.” Davy threw a withering look at Micky’s hiney.

Mike…had to admit Peter’s ass looked more taut and smooth in the new pants—no, that his pants looked smooth-fitting with no underwear line visible. No, wait— Peter turned, caught him looking, and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I’m— Why’s your belt crooked?” Mike gabbled, pointing at Peter’s hip.

“It’s not. It’s straight.”

“It’s twisted to one side!” Mike drew close enough to touch where the buckle rested, to Peter’s left and not in the center of his—

“Crotchular area.” Micky turned his head to throw in.

“That’s not the real name.” Mike told him. But whatever it was, that _zone_ was left kind of exposed.

“Why do I wear the buckle to the left?”

“Yes.” You had to break things down for Peter.

“So it’s in the right place.”

And then the answers he gave had to be broken down, and reassembled. Mike filed that one away, to do so, and for now, coaxed them all out of the pad and locked up behind them, making sure he didn’t bring up the— _sweet Baby Jesus in the highest heaven_ —rear, to avoid…anything. He hoped he didn’t lose any of them on the way along Beechwood, to the Purdys’.

“A record,” he muttered, as all four of them made it to Shore House, down the road. “Didn’t lose none o’ya to the ice cream truck, nor the newsstand, nor a pretty girl…”

Micky, Peter, and Davy turned to him one by one, their expressions identical.

“Excuse me.” Mike leaned over and between to press the bell. “And none o’ya riffing on the new name of the house, you hear me?”

“Mike!” Micky looked agonized. “Just let me get in one Sure Thing joke, please?” He thumbed the name plaque. “It’s begging for it!”

“Much like Shelley, then.” The reason for the pun, and a pun that was a lot milder than others that could have made. Davy set his smile to charm as the door opened.

“Oh, is it a bad time?” Mike asked Mrs. P, who was twittering and flapping more than usual.

“Come in, come in!” She almost pulled them inside. “No one really believes fortune tellers, do they. Well?”

They all jumped at the demand in the last word. “No?” Mike tried.

“Oh.” Micky nodded. “That new one in the kiosk on the pier? Nah. She’s useless. Told me I was gonna get chased and caught by a shark! Imagine that.”

“Erm…” Mike kinda could imagine that. Had seen stuff like that. “You do swim in the ocean a lot,” he muttered.

“No, Mikey, as in a car chase?” Micky mimed gripping a steering wheel and looking over his shoulder at a pursuer. “How’s a shark gonna catch me? I bet I got a ton more driving experience, right?”

“Well,” Mrs. Purdy said, after a long silence in which none of them wanted to deal with any detail of what Micky had said, “Fine. But that dreadful woman said things are going to go wrong this weekend, at the wedding, and it’s got me quite perturbed.” The half-empty gin bottle, tonic with its top off, and hacked-at lemon in the living room she showed them into were testament to her…perturbation. Mike preferred it when Mrs. P’s nerves were such that excess baking soothed them, with the Monkees being the recipients of the resulting cakes and pies. He guessed Mr. P was hiding out in his study.

“Where’s Shelley?” Mike asked, thinking the bride-to-be could comfort her nervous mother.

“Oh, out with friends.”

Mike scowled at the younger two Monkees mouthing it along with Mrs. P. Her daughter had a lot of friends, none of them female. They tended to fall out with Shelley, when she…fell in with their fellahs. 

“Well, we’ll be there.” Mike indicated their band uniforms, to remind Mrs. Purdy they’d be there to play, and to draw her attention to their outfits.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, clutching Peter’s arm and stroking the fabric, and nodding at his pants. “Your band suits!”

“Aiming to suit you and your guests, ma’am,” Mike replied, smooth as molasses.

“She’s got cold feet!” Mrs. P hissed, her hand over her mouth and looking all around.

“Davy’ll warm them right on up for her,” Micky offered, subsiding when Davy warmed his foot for him, by stamping on it.

“That’s so sweet of you to offer to help. Oh. _Help_. It’s Malibu Beach Resort Club, you know—”

“No,” Peter started, shaking his head. “I don’t—”

“Why would we know?” Mike cut him off. Not likely any of them’d be familiar with a rich-swank resort. Didn’t seem like the Purdys’ kind of place either. Oh, sure, Mr. P had done well for himself and the family, but they weren’t snobs. _Oh._ That made sense. He nodded as the woman explained her soon-to-be son-in-law, well, more his mother, had selected the venue. Shelley’s fiancé was a partner in his business, and quite a big Kahuna in Santa Monica, Mike knew. “Help, ma’am?” he prompted, dragging Mrs. P back from what Shelley’s almost mother-in-law had said about Mrs. P’s choice of wedding outfit. Oh, and the other woman’s choice of clothing:

“Cartwheel hat! It’s not 1950 and she’s no Rita Hayworth!” Mrs. Purdy sniffed. “She’ll need two seats to herself! And not just because of her big… Well.”

“Help, you said?” Mike wanted to get out of there while they still had time to rehearse. “With the wedding?”

“Oh yes!” Mrs. P stood and clasped her hands together. “With Shelley being so…”

“Flighty,” Micky whispered. “In fact, a flight _risk_.”

“So the way she is, if you could get there early and sort of—”

“Wrangle her,” Davy coughed.

“Like marshals…” Mrs. Purdy continued.

“Or Texas Rangers,” Peter murmured, smiling at Mike. His dimple deepened, in that way that fascinated Mike.

“Or stewards. Yes, exactly.” Mrs. P tended to hear what she wanted to hear and now her fingers strayed toward her glass. “And make sure things go smoothly?”

“With her cold feet?” Mike asked.

“Her wandering feet,” Davy corrected.

“Her chasing the next guy feet,” Micky surmised.

“So we’re guards,” Peter muttered.

“Things as in _everything_. That fortune teller quite upset me.” Mrs. P waved her hanky in front of her face, and Mike’s gaze was pulled to the door, and Mr. P standing just outside in the corridor.

“ _Please,_ ” he mouthed, holding his hands in prayer position.

“ _What’s it worth?_ ” Micky mouthed back before Mike could reply. He leaned back on the sofa to reach behind the others and slap Micky. He hit Peter instead. “Sorry. Pass it on _,_ ” he instructed, tilting his head at Micky to show the intended recipient.

Before Mike could intervene in the negotiation taking place from room to room, Mr. Purdy held up a piece of paper with a figure written on it. Micky shook his head and held up his own, which bore a much higher number on it. Wincing, Mr. Purdy pulled out another sheet of paper with a third number on it, one midway between the first and second amounts.

“Deal,” said Mike, his mouth moving of its own volition, making four heads swing to him. “We’ll put a great deal of effort into it, I mean, ma’am. Things’ll go as smooth as a serpent’s tongue in the noonday sun, you just see if they don’t.”

***

“Michael,” Peter said as they walked back to the pad. “You know how you get extra southern under pressure?”

“I don’t have one mite of a tick what you’re on about, shotgun,” Mike replied, not looking Peter in the eye.

“I mean, we’re short of money. Short _er_.” Peter’s pace slowed. “Like last month, when there was less than there should have been. Than we thought.”

“I don’t know as I rightly follow your trail there, cowboy.” Mike wanted to bang his head on the lamppost they passed. “It’s our duty and our privilege to help out a neighbor-woman.”

“She does want Shelley off her hands.” Davy slowed too and joined in. “And she’s relieved her daughter’s hooked a guy with his own business. Well, what mother wouldn’t be?”

“See?” Mike said to Peter. Wait. That wasn’t— Oh well, Too late now. “Mrs. P doesn’t feel good dealing with those snooty types, like there’ll be at this place. We can save her that.”

“Sure.” Peter nodded. “And I’m just wondering if we’ll be about twenty dollars down in the budget next month too.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me none,” Mike mumbled, thinking they could save on heating, the amount of it his face was putting out. This rate, he’d never be cold enough to need the beautiful one-of-a-kind fringed suede jacket hidden in the back of the No-Room closet and that he was still paying off.

“Huh! You were right!” Micky pointed at Mike’s face, then at his band shirt. “These do go with our coloring. It’s a perfect match!”

“Oh, come on!” Mike tried to rally. “Look, we’ll be at this Malibu resort place anyway, to perform. What’s the problem in getting there a little earlier, just to reassure Mrs. P that everything’s going just fine with all the setting up and laying out? I mean, what could go wrong?”

“Argghh!” Micky clutched his head in his hands, shocking a woman passing them, pushing a stroller. The baby inside it started to cry. “You just hadda jinx it, didn’t you?”


	4. Spring, 1965 part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a bit to the end of this so this chapter is the same size as the bit following. If that makes sense...  
> This is just complete nonsense.

“Oh wow. In fact, wow cubed, guys! In fact in fact, outta sight!”

Mike, still brooding over the smirk on the parking valet’s face when they’d pulled up to the East Wing of Malibu Beach Resort Club in their Ford Woodie wagon, wasn’t paying much attention to Micky’s exclamation. He wished he hadn’t blurted out “Hey, I _cleaned_ this car, man!” in the hope it would wipe the sneer of the brat’s face. It hadn’t, and the dweeb had smirked harder when they’d gotten a trolley to take their instruments in, making no attempt to drive off or help, just watched. Yeah, he’d be whistling Dixie when it came to getting a tip. Although Mike could think of several, with “Stop being such an asswipe, dude,” his current favorite.

“Michael?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, nice foyer.” Mike answered Peter, blinking at the huge space, all gold and cream and dotted with rugs and paintings and chandeliers.

“The staircases?” Peter drew Mike’s attention to the twin sets of stairs leading upward, both with very long bannisters sweeping down in graceful curves into the hall, then looked at Micky, his eyebrows raised.

“Sure, they’re real neat.”

“Ahem—”

“Now, Petey, don’t you go coughing all over this swell place!” Micky was in between them, putting a stop to whatever Peter had been going to say. “We should find where the Purdey wedding’s being held.”

“How we gonna do that?” Davy glanced all around, but there was no sign of a board with the names of the events being held there written on it.

A familiar scream rang out from somewhere to the left, followed by a thud.

“Follow that scream,” Mike said, leading the way. As he’d suspected, Mrs. P was lying in a faint on the floor, in front of what he guessed was a small reception desk. Least the carpet was thick. “Stand back.” He waved the small knot of concerned people off, tugging the smelling salts from a pocket and kneeling next to the supine woman. “What happened?”

“Well, unfortunately—and I was very much against hiring her—our temporary events lady was _English_ ,” answered a snooty-looking guy, lowering his voice to a whisper on the last word. His cream suit with gold accessories proclaimed he belonged there, and he retreated behind the discreet wooden desk in the corner.

“Erm, yeah?” Confused, Mike waved the small bottle in front of Mrs. Purdey’s nose.

“Oh, _I_ see.” Micky threw an arm around Davy. “So you all thought, ‘uh-oh, there goes the neighborhood,’ right?” He tutted loudly. “When will people learn to live and let live with Brits? They are exactly the same as us, guys! Well, a bit shorter, maybe, but that’s no reason to—”

“No, not that!” An equally snooty woman in a cream dress with gold belt, neckerchief and hairband took up the baton. “They write things differently than we do! Georgiana took down all the details of the booking for the Purdey-White wedding event, including the date, March Fifth…which she wrote as 05.03. Imagine! So when her notes were written up into the events book, the facilities were booked for—”

“The Third of May,” they all chorused, having been through this with Davy. “That’s in two months’ time,” Mike pointed out.

“Exactly,” the guy replied, as if Mike were smarter than he looked. “So if you could come back then—”

“But that’s a Tuesday!” complained Mr. Purdey, making them all stare at him. That was his only objection? Mike waved the sal volatile in his direction, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

“Listen, man, you screwed up and so you just gotta give the Purdeys a suite or a wing of rooms big enough to hold the wedding and reception, like they planned, booked, and paid for,” Mike stated. “This suite right here, where it’s supposed to be, in fact. Seems whatever was held here earlier’s about getting finished, right?”

“Well, I suppose it is.” The woman pursed her lips.

“Good! Because not long now and everyone’ll be arriving, plus the food and drink and what not.” Mrs. P had railed against the hotel’s mark-up and hired her own caterers and suppliers.

“Erm, not necessarily.” The woman looked a little happier now, and Mike had a bad feeling about it. “It seems the mother of the bride got a little confused when she was arranging things—reason why _we_ prefer to handle the arrangements, by the way—and instructed her outside vendors to deliver to the Malibu Beach Resort Inn.”

“But this is the Malibu Beach Resort _Club_ ,” Davy said. “That’s—”

“The wrong place!” screeched Mrs. P and fainted again, but from where she was sitting up, so not too badly this time.

“It’s about twenty miles away, at the other end of Malibu,” Peter said.

“Wait.” Mike uncapped the smelling salts again. Good thing he’d gotten the ten-faint-size bottle. “Was that what you started to tell us, a couple of evenings ago? That Mrs. P. had mentioned a different name before, when she was telling us about all the rooms booked, that she musta gotten the wrong name before?”

“Oh yes!” Peter nodded. “Then I forgot. Sorry.”

“That’s— Debra!” Mike waved at her, where she was walking slowly in from the main door, trying to find her way. He was glad to see his, well, steady? he supposed. It’d been almost a month of dating now and he wasn’t seeing anyone else.

“That means you’re almost at third base, baby!” Micky stuck his tongue out of one side of his mouth and rubbed his hands together.

“And you’re on thin ice.” Mike raised a warning eyebrow at Micky, who looked down, puzzled, presumably in search of frozen water cracking underneath his feet. “Debra. Thanks for coming early. Good of you.”

“I…” She looked around at the little gathering, her gaze ranging from one Monkee in red shirt, gray pants and black ankle boots to another, then settling on Mike, on his knees with a middle-aged woman’s head in his lap. “Said I would. To…help…”

“That’s good,” Mike repeated, smiling up at her. She was pleasant and sweet enough, and dressed very nicely today, as his guest at this event, the inevitable ribbon around her hair matching her dress. She had a smooth-skinned oval face, her eyelids usually blue or green with eyeshadow, and Mike fought hard to forget how Davy had said that that, plus the way she wore her ribbon tied into a bow on the top of her head…put him in mind of an Easter egg. Mike had never seen her without a ribbon around her hair. Her rolled-up-at-the-ends, neck-length ‘tawny’ hair. Why couldn’t women say their hair was brown? It wasn’t a dirty word.

“Heh, as usual, you kinda catch us in the middle of something.” Mike helped Mrs. P to her feet. The first time Debra had come inside the pad, after they’d been out for an evening, the place had been in darkness, with a rusty creaking noise the only sound and Mike had flicked the light on, only for Debra to scream loud and long enough for several neighbors to come running. Mike scowled at Micky in memory: the light coming on had revealed Micky standing near the door with an ax in his hands, and Davy literally swinging from the creaking chandelier above, trying to keep airborne.

“Murder in the Dark is Made of Lava, my ass.” Mike muttered. So Davy and Micky had been too broke to go out anywhere—didn’t mean they had to play silly made-up games like kids. And that Nyles of all people had come in to see if everything was okay…and joined in, along with…his mother and fathers. Yeah, plural. Long story, one his mother had told them every detail of, several of which Mike could have lived without ever knowing, although Micky had been rapt, and asked a series of questions.

Once Debra had come out of the bathroom—having to bolt there, Davy reckoned, because she’d started to pee herself in fright—she’d sort of inched her way to the front door, not turning her back on any of them, then shouted an excuse and her goodbyes once she was the other side of it.

So, all in all, not the best introduction to his friends, roommates and band mates, any more than the second give-it-another-shot occasion had been, despite her having brought over a friend, at Micky’s request, for a double date. And probably because Debra deemed it a good idea, there being safety in numbers.

On this occasion, the other three were in the middle of a No Talking Contest, playing for chores…and Micky, his eyes and cheeks bulging in desperation and his face as red as a fire truck, had kept it up all throughout the evening. Debra’s friend Alison had left in tears when Micky was trying to convey to the waitress in the Hash House a Go Go diner exactly how he wanted his burger.

“She could’ve been a _bit_ more understanding!” he’d railed afterward. “And I’d like to see how _she’d_ have conveyed she wanted _her_ fried egg over medium, if _she_ couldn’t speak.”

“I don’t think it was that as much as ‘hold the pickle’ that did it for her,” Mike was prepared to bet, his theory later confirmed by a tight-lipped Debra after she’d spent a good thirty minutes on the phone to her now ex-friend.

“Good thing I didn’t ask for extra cheese, huh?” Micky…tended to see the positive in situations. Even if he completely missed the point of said situations.

And as for the third occasion— Mike was recalled to what he was actually doing, here and now: Mrs. P should go rest in the room she’d booked for the parents of the bride.

“Could you help our lovely neighbor and the mother of the bride, Mrs. Purdy, to her room, please, Debra?” Mike asked, suddenly wondering where the blushing bride was. If they had to go trawling Santa Monica for the runaway bride, well, they’d need the hugest dragnet. In all senses of the word.

“Er, yes?” Debra took Mike’s place, supporting Mrs. P, and Mike tried to drop a kiss on Debra’s cheek, and missed, getting his chin caught in the pad of hair just behind her bow, at the crown of her head that was teased into a puff, standing higher than the rest and spongy with it. Strands stuck to his whiskers—he’d risen late and shaved quickly, intending to do it properly just before the ceremony—and were jerked from the backcombed bouffant bit when Debra wrenched her head free.

“Sorry!” Mike winced. “I bet Davy’s got a comb if you need one?”

With a slightly tight-lipped, “It’s fine,” Debra bore Mrs. Purdey away.

“Michael, it seems the caterers and drinks won’t re-deliver to here,” Peter said, turning from the desk where he’d been speaking to the hotel guy.

“Guess they don’t got an obligation to. Well, not a problem.” Mike thought quickly. “Davy and Micky, you go and…borrow a van from here and go there and collect the stuff, and Peter and I will get the rooms set up, so when you get back, we just have to put the food out.”

“And the tableware, table centerpieces, napkins, room floral arrangements and décor,” Peter added, making Mike stare.

“Oh no.” The hotel guy gave them a happy smile, one Mike didn’t trust. “Those things are all coming here.”

“Gre—”

“On the third of May.”

“What? That’s— And why are you two still here? Go!” Mike commanded the younger Monkees, pointing to the door and watching them skedaddle before he turned back to the hotel staff. “Cancel those orders, man!”

“Oh, I regret to say I cannot, not having any of the details, sir.” The guy closed a big ledger with a snap and walked off, a swing to his hips.

“Here.” Mr. Purdey thrust a huge binder at them. _The happiest day of my life_ was stencilled on the front and it bore pictures of blushing brides—none of whom bore any resemblance to Shelly.

“This has got all the details?” Mike asked, lifting his head to the father of the bride. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and blinked again: Mr. P, changed as quickly as Micky did, was now dressed in brown plus fours and long checked socks that matched his woollen sweater. A group of friends, visible through the window and all carrying long bags out of which the heads of golf clubs poked, beckoned to him from outside, and he vanished.

“Huh. No wonder he was so happy to have the event here.” Mike shook his head. “Guess it’s up to us now, shotgun.” And they should be getting the sum Micky had written on that first piece of paper, the amount of work this looked set to be.

“I think this place must be famous for the golf course,” Peter surmised, when they peeked into the suite of rooms the Purdeys would be using for the wedding dinner, and evening dancing and music, now all sign of the, what? _oh_ , golf championship presentation brunch awards were being stripped away from them.

‘“Putter Madness,”’ Mike read from the banner two hotel chicks were taking down. “I didn’t realize golfers went in for wordplay. Funny, huh?”

“Oh yes, golf’s a punny game all right,” Peter told him.

“I reckon—” Mike stopped and eyed him. He still didn’t know, with Peter. Was still figuring him out. “I reckon if we ask to borrow these decorations and so on, they might have to say no, with hotel rules or whatnot. So, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I…doubt it. I’m thinking of the best _leche merengada_ I’ve ever had? Or, had so far, I should say. It was in a really small bar in El Rosal, in Caracas, Venezuela, that said ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE on the door. I went in because it said that. That wasn’t the name of the bar. I don’t think I ever knew the name.”

“ _Peter?_ ” Mike made his tone ask all the questions his brain couldn’t find words for.

“I think it had more lemon zest than the standard recipe. The _leche_.” Peter smiled, lost in memory.

“Okay, you win. You’re not thinking what I’m thinking.” Mike gave himself a shake, like a dog coming out of a stream, to get back to the here and now. “I’m thinking one of us should distract those chambermaids or whatever they are and the other one help himself to those carts full of stuff we need. The plates and flowers, look.”

“Hmm. Distract, how?” Peter whispered, his mouth so close to Mike’s ear that if Mike leaned in just a little bit more, he’d—

Mike tore himself away. “Well, I ain’t suggesting we lob a coupla smoke bombs. We don’t have any, for one thing. We gotta use what we do got.”

“Oh, I see.” Peter’s mouth twisted up at one side, his little button mole dancing. “So who’s flirting and who’s stealing? Oh, I guess I should flirt, with you being spoken for, right?”

“What?”

“The lovely Debra.”

Pete probably did think she was lovely. He tended to see the best in everyone. And Debra _was_ lovely. Pretty and nice, but— “Oh, well, no. It’s not like that. Not exclusive. I mean, dating other guys—we never said that wasn’t…” Mike finished in a shrug.

“ _Oh?_ ” Peter eyed him.

“Her. She. Other guys.” Mike wanted to mop his brow. How was it Peter did stuff like this to him!

“So, fingers, is it?”

“ _Wut?_ ” Should he take out the smelling salts again, this time for himself? Might make things make more sense.

“Choose fingers to see who draws the chicks’ attention away from the carts full of stuff we need to ‘borrow’? Better be quick—they’ve nearly finished.” Peter indicated the room. “Odd.”

“Wh— Oh. Even.” Mike twisted his arm behind his back and brought it forward, at the same time he stuck out his index finger. Peter had extended his middle finger.

“Me, then.” Peter nodded. “One minute…” And he vanished for a minute, then reappeared with his acoustic guitar, his sleeves rolled up to his toned, tan forearms, and the placket of his red shirt open, the flap falling loose and revealing the vee of hair on his chest. He wandered into and through the room, plucking at chords as he went, his head bent, like a golden-haired wandering minstrel from a storybook, right up to the raised dais at the head of the room, where he hitched one leg up onto a chair and started a song Mike had never heard before, but knew had to be one of Peter’s.

‘“Walkin’ down a lonely street  
I need someone to meet  
I run across sweet-lookin’ you  
Do you know what you do?”’

Peter sang, then looked up at the bemused ladies all turned to him. “Oh, hi! Is it cool if I practice for later? Test the acoustics in here and run through my new song? What do you think?”

About to answer “Yes, please,” and “It sounds real groovy,” Mike caught Peter’s signal that he should get moving while the chicks converged on him. Yeah, of course. Mike slipped into the room, half-crouched, and grabbed one cart’s handles, twisting it the other way around so he could duck behind it unseen to scoop the remaining bits and pieces, mostly flowers, which would have to go on top, he supposed, into both trolleys. Wow, that new song was really something.

‘“Sittin’ by a firelight  
Coffee cups for two  
Touch my lips with your fingertips  
Do you know what you do?”’

Peter looked at Mike as he sang this verse. ‘“You tear the top right off my head,”’ he lilted.

 _You blow my mind_ , Mike found himself thinking, just as Peter sang that line. Mike…didn’t know if it was an example of the weird thought-transference thing that seemed to be their bag, or if it was his opinion of Peter. Peter shot him a long look, one Mike caught and held, then realized he was still there, not escaped and hiding with their pilfered goods.

“Oh, a piano!” Peter said, as if just spotting it, although Mike would bet he’d seen it from a room away. He had that gift. Could _smell_ instruments, Micky reckoned. “Would it be okay if…”

Any noise Mike made pushing two housekeeping carts, with himself crouched in between them, was lost in the female chorus urging Peter to tickle…the ivories. “I’ll take these,” he called from the door in a disguised voice. Whenever he tried to imitate a chick, the others said he sounded like a conceited, self-centred southern princess, so he didn’t do it often.

The team, now listening to Peter running scales on the piano, gave vague waves in Mike’s direction. Peter launched into that warm-up piece he liked to play, and that he called a Two-Part Invention, Bach by way of vamping.

It was Mike’s turn now to appear at the door and cough, to get Peter back on track. Peter was deep into his music and not the chicks, despite the way they were hanging over the piano. Peter closed the piano lid and the chicks left, slowly and reluctantly. Mike wondered how many of them had slipped him their numbers. He pushed the trolleys back in when the girls had left, and he and Peter eyed their spoils.

“It’s all a bit white.” Mike poked at the crockery, linen and flowers.

Peter shrugged. “Appropriate for a wedding.”

“Depends on the bride.”

“Don’t you think women have the right to do what they want, just as men have, without being criticized or shamed for it, Michael?” Peter asked, his head tilted to one side.

“You mean _who_ they want, if we’re talking about Shelly. Sorry. Hell yeah, I do, Of course I do. Everything from having the sort of job they want to dressing the way they want to having the sort of sex they want.” He suddenly flashed back to Shayne and her very…individual preferences.

“Oh.” Peter sounded as if he were reacting more to the picture in Mike’s mind than to his statement, and Mike hurried to distract him, handing him a long apron and taking one himself, for them to fasten each other up’s ties around the waist from behind. Mike’s burrowing dislodged cards and bits of paper, tidied away after the golf awards event, and Mike pointed at one category. “Bet these guys had fun earlier.” The award was for BEST HOLE.

Peter fished out a card saying BIGGEST NINE IRON. “They kind of go together, don’t you think?”

Woah. Mike had a lot of questions about Peter’s observation but didn’t know where to start. He pulled out another card, this one a little crumpled, and read aloud, ‘“MOST BALLS.”’

“Pass it to me.” Peter held out his hand for it, and Mike was about to dispute Peter’s claim to the…card, when Peter unfolded the bottom of the creased paper, so a third word, LOST, was added to the category. “Makes more sense.”

“As much as anything does.” Mike shook himself again. “C’mon. We need to bust hump…”

They moved in a two-man team to shake somewhat creased and occasionally stained tablecloths onto the tables and shove chairs around them. There was an unused stack of cloth napkins, luckily. “Here’s the seating chart and place cards.” Mike propped the binder open at that page.

“Hmm. If we style the napkins into place card holder folds, it’ll take too long. And cutlery wrap style is so basic.” Peter tapped the mound of linen squares. “How about we do flower folds? The petal effects will hide these little golf ball and tee monograms and we can use up some of these huge floral displays of white dahlias, peonies and chrysanthemums that I can only presume are supposed to look like golf balls?”

“Folds? Holders? Wraps? _Dahlias?_ ” Mike was flummoxed. “Peter, who are you? Like, _royalty_ or something?”

“Hardly. I’ll show you. It’ll be easy for you, with those long musician’s fingers…”

“Flatten, fold askew, pull through, insert,” Mike was repeating a minute later, still staring at his long musician’s fingers pulling folded napkins through rings and tucking the stems of flowers through the rings after. The heap of completed ones was growing. “But we kinda plundered the floral displays there.”

Peter finished distributing the place cards. “No problem.” He did his vanishing act and reappeared with his arms full of greenery, all of which Mike could see he’d picked from the grounds and some of which Mike thought were weeds and grasses. He pointed at some purple and aqua blue plants Peter had stuffed into his waistband, all around, like a bandolier. “They look like colorful cabbages!”

“Good eye. They’re ornamental kale. I’m feeling Spry.” While Mike set out plates, taking care to cover any stains on the tablecloth, Peter slotted a bunch of white flowers into a water carafe and pushed willow twigs into the middle of it. They moved to the next table and here Peter broke up the white flowers with long, trailing grasses, using a glass jug with a handle this time, and Mike marveled.

 _Spry…_ Tucking that away to ponder later dislodged the last Peter-ism Mike had hoarded. “Hey, that day when I needed a pencil and so you said you needed a pencil for your wetsuit…did you mean to use the graphite, on the zip to make it run smooth?”

“I don’t remember, but probably.” Peter shook his bangs out of his eyelashes and Mike’s finger itched to stroke a finger under the silky blond strands to free them.

“I liked your song,” Mike blurted. “It’s new?”

“Oh.” Peter chuckled. “It isn’t ready yet. It’ll take a while. Not like yours. And I love that new one.” They moved to yet another table. “‘All men must, have _some_ one…”’ Peter crooned. “Such a strong bassline—thanks!”

“Oh, well, you know…” Mike blushed. He straightened from his work, amazed how good the tables looked. “Is this kind of fruity?” he queried.

“I don’t get hung up on definitions.” Peter created another display, more green weeds with one golf ball flower at one side, this one in a goblet. “Or preconceptions, or conceptions—”

“What about _contra_ ception?” Mike quipped.

“That I do take into account.” Peter grinned.

“Good to know.” Mike looked for the best spot on the table to put the bread plate.

“I could hardly fail to—the pad’s always full of condoms. It’s almost as if whoever goes to the store buys them in bulk…perhaps from the wholesale retail warehouse place when that person is helping Pop get the stock for his restaurant?”

“Pete—” Mike went to position the plate down over a coffee cup ring at the same time as Peter went to place his goblet there, and their fingers touched. Electricity zinged through Mike’s nerve endings.

“Hey, I—”

Debra’s fatigued voice broke the moment, and her looking from him to Peter recalled Mike to where he was, what he, they, were there to do. He checked the time. “You’ve been gone a while, there, cutie?” he remarked.

“It took a while to settle Mrs. Purdy, is it, her name?” A frazzled Debra smoothed her dress. It was creased, as if from a middle-aged woman clutching it, and the bodice damp, as if from a mother-of-the-bride’s tears. “Then I got lost in this huge place.” She pulled out a chair to sag into.

“No time for that!” Mike protested.

“No time, no time at all,” Peter riffed.

“Could ya cancel all the table and room stuff? Get a phone and plug it in here to call up the suppliers, explain there was a mix-up? The names and numbers should be in this binder.”

“I’ll find you a phone,” Peter offered, as Debra opened and shut her mouth at Mike’s request. “There’s an apron in the cart…”

Debra refused the unflattering puke-green apron but was soon calling companies and explaining…best she could. Mike smiled his thanks. "And it’s good practice, huh?” Debra had said she wanted to start working. “Kind of thing you’ll be doing in a job?”

“We could do with a secretary,” Peter mused.

“And not a press officer and/or PR agent,” Debra muttered, her tone a little bitter.

Mike didn’t have time to go into her remark, not when an _AHOOOGAA_ sounded outside the window and a huge truck drove slowly past, Micky and Davy waving from its cab.

“What the— Micky ain’t licensed enough to drive a ten-wheeler!” Mike exclaimed.

“Well, Davy ain’t _tall_ enough drive a ten-wheeler,” Peter replied.

The truck swung around and backed up with a BEEP-BEEP-BEEP until the doors were level with the windows.

“Clever!” Mike praised, as Davy and Micky leaped down from the cab, opened up the back and started passing out the food. “Debra, could you lend a hand? The longer the human chain, the quicker it’ll be, because I don’t think they should park there.”

“In a flower bed? No, I don’t believe they should.” Lips getting tighter by the minute, Debra joined the crew.

“Careful, the containers are heav—now, see, that’s why we said to wear an apron!” Mike grabbed a cloth to mop up the chicken soup spillage on Debra.

“Don’t just let go!” Peter buckled under the sudden extra weight and his container tipped. “Damn. Sorry. Debra. Wow, that shakshuka’s spicy.”

“And tomato-y.” Debra glared down at the red patch on her dress.

“And poached egg-y.” Mike tried to catch the errant egg slipping down Debra, grabbed her boob instead, and Peter caught the egg before it hit the floor. “Hey, neat save, Peter!”

“ _Don’t_ high-five each other!” Debra cowered as they both took a hand from under the metal containers they were holding. “Not the least because…you’re holding a poached egg,” she finished too late to remind Peter.

“’S’okay, see?” Peter wiped his yolky hand on his almost floor-length apron. He licked his hand after, the strawberry-pink point of his tongue spearing between his fingers. “Yes, too much chili.”

“Impossible,” Mike replied automatically, as befitting a true son of the south.

“Erm, lads?” Davy indicated the wobbling three-tiered wedding cake he and Micky were holding. “This won’t fit through the window.”

“Pass it in layer by layer and reassemble inside?” Micky suggested. “It’s just like Lego, right?”

“No! Put it down!” Mike ordered.

The two outside did so, looking happy about it. “Uh-oh—time we weren’t here!” Davy indicated the small convoy of security vehicles converging. “We can shake ’em off, right, Micky?”

But there was no curly-haired drummer to be seen, so Davy vaulted into the truck’s cab and somehow managed to start the truck and drive it off. With a “Quick!” Mike led his small team outside just as a man wearing an old straw hat and overalls pointed with a shaky finger at the plowed-up garden, and a man in a long frockcoat and starched white shirt stared aghast in the window of the room Mike and Peter were setting up. “What in hell is going on here?” they demanded in unison.

“They can’t say that!” Debra gasped. “Can they?”

“I think you’d better talk to _him_ ,” Mike and Peter said together, pushing the butler toward the gardener and the gardener toward the butler and pushing a little more until the duo was a two-man ball of incoherent shouting and gesticulating rage.


	5. Spring, 1965 part three

Mike and Peter hefted up the cake to get it inside quickly. “Where’s Micky, anyway?” Mike grumbled, in the foyer.

“Right here, Mikey!” came from the top of the long curved bannister Micky was sitting his tush on, preparing to slide down.

“No!” Debra cried, looking from Mike and Peter to Micky. Specifically, from the cake they held to Micky.

“Wheeee!” Setting off, Micky did his own sound effects before Mike could yell at him. “You didn’t say I couldnnnn’ttttttt!” came in a long trill.

Damn. He hadn’t. Oh, that must have been what Peter had been trying to warn him about earlier, forbidding Micky from attempting this. “Well, I guess lightning doesn’t strike tw—”

Debra’s scream cut off the last word as Micky whooshed right off the end of the railing, up into the air and down. Face first. Into the cake. Which splattered on impact.

“And I guess you’d better not be flying any kites on any roofs anytime soon,” Peter commented, as Mike opened his mouth to yell at Micky. “Still, only one tier gone, so not too bad?”

Micky straightened up, frosting dripping from him, and the cake collapsed in on itself, like a building imploding. It was almost hypnotic to watch.

Damn. And worse was the looks both Micky and Peter gave him, as though this was his fault. Mike closed his mouth, wishing Debra would too. All that cheeping and twittering was grating on him.

“And I also guess Shelly needs a new cake.” Peter shook sponge and frosting from his apron. “And quickly?”

“Debra, could you be a honey and call around a couple bakeries, get another?” Mike asked. “While we set the buffet out?”

“I’ll hel—”

“No you won’t,” Mike interrupted a sponge-faced Micky. He peeled off a pink sugar flower that was stuck to the middle of Micky’s forehead, and Micky plucked it from his fingers and ate it. “Don’t trust you around food. Go wash your face and set up the chapel room.”

Peter coughed.

“And just because you’re in a chapel, no dressing up as a priest and performing a ceremony,” Mike added, catching on.

Peter coughed again.

“Or any kind of minister, preacher, cleric, clergyman, or holy man.” Mike thought quickly.

“Or pontiff or vicar.” Peter smiled at Mike. “Better cover all the bases.”

“Alright already!” Micky complained. “You don’t need to get so ecumenical. It takes all the fun out of things.”

With an, “It’s meant to!” at Micky’s departing back, Mike shook Peter’s hand in a job-well-done way, and they both rubbed their bumped noses after.

Debra slammed the phone down before they’d finished setting out half the food. “I can’t find a bakery that’ll deliver right away,” she announced.

“Well, throw your weight around,” Mike answered.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Debra shouted, but her words were drowned out by screeches and wails from the room next door.

“Isn’t that Shelly? Another few years and she’ll be screaming just like her mom.” Mike cocked his head. “Better go see.”

Dashing into the corridor, they met Micky and Davy, both drawn by the shouting and wailing. “What?” Mike couldn’t understand the words coming from the room where Shelly was getting ready.

“Her beautician’s gone to the wrong place, and she’s got no one to do her hair and face,” Davy translated, seemingly fluent in Hysterical Female. “I’ll handle it. Shelly, I’m coming in.”

“Huh?” Micky grabbed him. “I’m the expert with that sort of thing!”

“I’ve got three sisters –I know about tarting up. You know about wigs and makeup as disguise. We’re not getting her up as a 1930s gangster or clown or old man. I’ll call you if I need you.” He smoothed down his hair and went in, locking the door behind him.

About to, well, do _something_ about it, the screech from the room they’d just left stopped Mike in his tracks. “Weddings sure bring out the screams in women,” he mused, running back to that room. “Debra, what—”

“I give up!” She threw the phone book on the floor and stamped on it. “It’s impossible to get a cake at such short notice!”

“Oh, let me handle it.” Micky took the phone. “You all carry on. Over there.”

Mike walked over there as directed, but was near enough to hear Micky talking in a high-pitched voice and thought he heard whoever was on the other end address him as ‘Roxy’. Mike stuck his finger in his ear and waggled it. He must have frosting in there.

“Hey,” Micky called out. “What name on the cake? What’s the groom’s name, I mean?”

“ _Dick,_ ” Shelley’s voice yelled.

“Hey, lady, less o’ the name-calling. We’re trying our best here, okay?” Mike yelled back.

“ _He’s_ Dick!” came back, a little indistinctly.

“Sounds like she’s getting cold feet,” Micky said. “You know, that stage when the women blame the guy for the pain they’re in, call them all the names under the sun, say they’ll never let him touch them again?”

“I think that’s during childbirth, Micky,” Peter said, after a pause. “I also think her fiancé’s name’s Richard, so, Dick?” he added.

“Ohhhh.” Mike gave a slow nod.

“Right.” Micky put the phone down. “Two hours max until delivery.”

“Great! We can stall a little, if we have to, before the cake comes.” Mike regarded the room. “I think it’s all going gre—”

“Fellahs, slight hitch.” Davy appeared in their midst.

Micky glared at Mike. “When will you _learn_?”

“Shelly forgot the Something Old, Something new, Something Borrowed, Something Blue and says she won’t go through with the wedding.” Davy looked from one to another.

“Told ya. Cold feet.” Micky looked smug.

“ _What?_ ” Mike yelped. “I made flower fold napkins, man!” He blushed. That wasn’t the point, he knew.

“I gave her a drink to calm her down,” Davy assured them.

“Okay, let’s think. Well, her father’s old,” Micky said. “Actually, and the groom too.”

“And new…we could get her something from here,” Mike suggested. “They got a gift boutique in the main part of the hotel—get her a little souvenir. Emphasis on the little.”

“Little meaning cheap. We got it, Mike!” Micky said.

“Maybe get something blue there as well,” Mike added.

“Like a skin mag!” Micky looked from one to another. “You know, what Davy told us, how dirty movies are called blue movies there, because blue means porn, and so girlie magazines—”

“Ahem.” Mike indicated Debra.

“I can’t call ’em top-shelf mags, Mike—that’s rude to Davy.” Micky was all put-upon innocence. “Actually, Davy, I gotta say I have wondered how you do manage to get adult literature. Porno mags,” he explained, then clarified what he meant by miming trying to get something from up high.

“Oh, you wonder how I reach?” Davy asked, and Micky nodded. Mike closed his eyes. Wondered if he should hold a hand over Debra’s. “Like this, man!” _This_ was Davy jumping up and bringing his fist down on the top of Micky’s head like a hammer, which sent Micky sprawling to the floor. “Course, then it’s even easier after,” Davy continued, standing over Micky and forming both hands into fists. Micky tripped him and Davy went down too, landing on top of Micky, and the two rolled over and over, struggling to get their hands free enough to wallop the other.

“Shelly could borrow jewelery,” Peter said, as if nothing was happening below them. “Well, if we had any.”

“A watch?” Mike held up his wrist.

Peter screwed up his face. “Umm, bit symbolic? Like she’s on borrowed time?”

“Here!” Debra held out her ribbon. “Borrowed and blue.”

Mike tried not to notice how naked she looked without it, but she did. “Well, thanks. Davy, take this and let’s all get back to work, huh?”

They were nearly finished when a roaring and crashing started from the bridal room and they rushed back there. Davy came out, ducking as a vase was thrown after him. “Erm…you know how I gave Shelly a drink? It seemed to make her a bit tipsy, so I gave her another—”

“Why? Why would you—” Mike started.

“Fight fire with fire.” Micky nodded. “Go on, Davy?”

“And another and now she’s raging drunk,” Davy finished.

“Well sober her up, man!” Mike ordered, one eye on the clock.

“How?”

“I don’t know—make her throw up!”

“How?” Davy repeated.

“Show her a picture of Richard?” Micky suggested.

“Got one here.” Shelley appeared in the doorway and waved a picture around, torn from a magazine.

“That’s a camel. And not even the front end.” Mike stared at the picture. “And it’s— Well, I guess they drink a lot of water, right? Has to come out somewhere. Where would you even get that?” He pulled himself together—voices and footsteps were coming from the corridor. Lots of them. Mike tried a smile. “Debra, could you—”

“What?” she snapped.

“Stall them, a little?” Mike upped his smile.

“How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” she inquired, making them all gasp.

“Knew it. We broke her,” Davy muttered.

“How—oh, there’s a hundred ways! Micky answered. “Say there’s a gas leak in the room, an escaped snake under the seats, that someone in the room had measles, so it’s being disinfected and they gotta wait, or, if you have to let them in—”

“They’re going in,” Davy observed.

“That they have to observe fifteen minutes’ silence with their eyes closed.”

Looking as though she wished measles and an escaped snake on them, Debra stomped off.

“Mike!” Micky’s voice was full of admiration a few minutes later as he and Mike poured black coffee down Shelly’s throat and Davy and Peter hovered with basins. “You never told us you bagged a Catholic schoolgirl.”

“I did? When? _Debra?_ What makes you say that?” Mike stared at him.

“Listen.”

Mike did. They all did, to the thin voice singing— “ _Ave Maria?_ ” Peter asked.

“Yeah. It’s what Catholic schoolgirls do in difficult times,” Micky told him, as if he’d been in that situation before.

It must be her, Mike agreed. It was coming from the chapel. “Well, that’s clever, I guess. The guests might be their seats, but no one can tell her to stop, to hurry things up. What’s she gonna do when the song’s finished, though?” he wondered.

Sing it again, and then in English, and then back to the Latin was the answer, to fill in the time until the four of them got Shelly to the door of the chapel and started her down the aisle. Debra was hoarse and thunder-faced when she took her place next to Mike. About to apologize, to tell Debra that okay, it had been a little crazy, but they could spend time together from now on, now things had calmed, Mike instead leaned around her to glare at Davy. “Why has the bride got a fresh hickey?”

“Something blue?” Davy gave that cheeky shrug that got him out of most trouble.

“She isn’t even wearing my blue ribbon,” Debra croaked.

“Oh, she is. I tied it on her mesself.” Davy winked and Mike peered hard at the bride–yeah, a strip of sky blue was visible high up around her thigh, seen through the somewhat sheer fabric of her gown.

“ _What?_ ” Debra demanded, then flipped the bird at the people in the row in front who turned round to shush her.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll get it back for you,” Mike assured her.

“I don’t want it _now_!” she growled.

“Weddings. Bring out the worst in people,” Micky commented.

“I think that’s funerals, Micky,” Peter said, after a pause.

But it went fine, even if Shelly did turn round and glare at the assembled guests when it got to the ‘just cause and impediment’ bit, at which both Mike and Peter pressed down on Micky’s shoulders to prevent him getting to his feet, just in case. And the reception went fine, even though the food was by now even less than luke-warm.

Mike took stock of the buffet, from the matzo ball soup to the brisket and challah bread, the potato latkes and onion rolls, and the knish and kugel. “Mick, the food’s a little, well, _Jewish_ , don’t you think?”

“Now, Mike, what does Peter say about having a love and understanding of different cultures and religions, huh?” Micky wagged a finger.

“I only meant that as neither the Purdeys or the Whites are Jewish, is it possible that you took the food meant for another and a quite different wedding, d’you think?”

“Ah. I’d say it’s very possible indeed, yeah. Oh!” Micky’s eyes opened wide. “ _That’s_ why the rabbi and the two cantors were chasing me!”

“Why who was what now?” Mike processed Micky’s words. “So why did you think they were, if not about the food?”

“Oh, I thought they were Mossad.”

“Israeli Intelligence?” Peter, passing, stopped to ask. “Why would they be after you?”

“Because of Operation Diamond!”

“Operat— Oh, what is this, Operation Diamond?” Mike demanded.

With an, “I said too much.” Micky slinked away.

Mike shook his head. It didn’t clear it. “I feel drunk,” he said. “Dealing with Micky does that to a guy.”

“Yeah, that and I put alcohol in the punch,” Micky popped back to say.

“You too?” Davy asked.

“Davy!”

“Mrs. P. told me too!” he explained, pointing over at her at the top table. She waved, a happy smile wreathing her face.

“Oh, well, then…” Was probably not the right answer, Mike felt, any more than knocking back another glass of doctored drink was, but had no time to go into it, not when Micky reappeared, pushing the replacement cake.

“Just the one tier?” Mike asked. Wedding cakes usually had more, he thought, but, well, the size of this one made it big enough with just one, he guessed. “This is going really well.” He took a look around at the happy family and guests gathering around the cake, the photographer advancing on it, the bride and groom coming up behind it to cut it…only to be stopped by the nearly naked mermaid woman jumping out of it, her leap making quite a few guests scream.

The nearly naked mermaid woman whose top half was clothed in two shells, and whose bottom half—Mike dragged his eyes away when Debra hit him for looking.

“Ta-da! I’m a piece of tail”—she swung her mer-tail as she crooned—“who’s looking for some Dick! I want my Dick! Where’s Dick?”

The place erupted like a volcano.

“What?” the mermaid demanded. “I got the shell theme you asked for, and I got the right name, Dick, don’t I?”

“This _cake_ …” The woman in the huge round hat could only be Shelly’s mother-in-law and Mrs. P’s nemesis.

“It’s the usual cake All Girls, All Day order!” the woman reposted. “I even wrote the little song myself. Okay, so I don’t got Mike’s way with words and music…” She waved at the four Monkees. “Hi, Mike.”

“Hey, Ecstasy.” Mike waved back.

“Mike? Who’s this Ecstasy?” Debra demanded.

“Oh, it’s not her real name.” Mike lowered his voice. “Her real name’s Joy. She wanted something a little more pizzaz-y, you know? So I got the thesaurus and suggested—”

“That’s it. _That_ is the final straw,” Debra spat.

“Final shells, you mean,” Micky muttered, pointing…with the forefingers of both hands at the top half of Ecstasy’s costume.

“A shell too far, even.” Davy knocked Micky’s hands down.

“Final straw?” Mike inquired, not liking Debra’s heavy breathing and flared nostrils. “What d’you mean, final straw?”

“I can’t take any more shenanigans!” Debra half-screamed. “All the romping about like things are speeded up and set to music! All the weird problems and the ridiculous situations and the crazy schemes to get out of them with ludicrous disguises and absurd accents—it’s not _normal_!” It was a full scream by the end, when she stopped to draw breath.

“Debra.” Mike stood tall, shoulders back “What is normal, huh? Who’s to say? What is reality, even? It’s kinda what we make it. It’s inside us and up to us to create it and—”

Debra held up a hand. “Mike, I’m gonna stop you right there and give you a tip I learned in debate class.”

“In Catholic school? Yeah, not really the time.” Micky subsided.

“And that tip is, when you’re trying to give a speech, it works better if you haven’t got egg in your eyebrows and hair!” Debra shouted, pointing.

“Mikey, seems the yolk’s on you.” Micky of course.

“Looks like you’ve got egg on your face.” Followed by Davy.

Mike bent to them. “When this is over, your asses are mine.”

“In your dreams, cowboy,” sniffed Davy. “Right, Mick?” But Micky just stood there, as though struck by lightning, eyeing Mike, curiosity stealing over his face.

“Oh, I tried.” Debra wasn’t done. “Because I thought it would be cool to have a boyfriend in a band. All my friends thought the group playing at Pop’s was ger-roovy and they all wanted one.”

“Told you.” Micky, recovered, held out his hand to Davy, who slapped a five-dollar-bill in it. “Wait. Debra, that redhead you were with—she want a musician boyfriend, by any chance?”

“And I suppose this, you, were an act of rebellion.” Debra still had more to deliver. “My family is so straitlaced and conventional.”

“And _I_ told _you_.” Davy snapped his fingers and Micky gave him the five bucks back. “The way she was always tidying up whenever she came over?” He shook his head.

“But it didn’t matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t get into your ‘vibe’, your ‘bag’ and anyway, you’re hardly the Beatles! Like Alison said, it’s not exactly country estates and white Rolls Royces with you, is it?”

“Told you. Mer-cen-ar-y,” Micky singsonged and held out his hand for the money back from Davy.

“But I didn’t care about that,” Debra continued.

“Oh, damn!” Micky lamented and Davy took the five bucks back.

“That’s good, sweetie?” Mike tried.

“Yeah, I liked that you were good-looking and…well…” Debra lowered her gaze. “A big guy.”

“But Mike’s not that muscular?” Micky interjected, pointing at his shoulders. Davy lowered Micky’s finger for him, to point elsewhere. To the area just under his belt buckle. “Oh? Ohh. _Ohhhh._ ” Micky’s eyes popped.

“But you came to help out today.” Mike wished they weren’t having this conversation in front of a growing crowd of wedding guests.

“Yeah, to look good in front of Mr. White.” She threw a grim smile at the groom. “To talk about a job in his company. My parents are nagging me to start work and, huh, it’s not as though you’ll be needing a publicist or a manager, is it?”

An _oohh_ came from the crowd.

“Well, I’d bet no one had had ‘using us for career prospects’ on their break-up bingo card?” Micky asked, and the crowd shook its collective head.

With a final, “ _Ha!_ ” and a stamp on Mike’s foot, Debra left.

Silence fell.

“Weddings bring out the break-up in people,” Micky commented. “Well, with your squeeze gone, looks like it’s back to Texas Hold ’Em for you, Mike.”

“Micky, I’m asking you nicely to cool it.” Peter stepped forward and waved the crowd away, then turned to Mike and embraced him in a huge, tight hug. When he stepped back, he gripped Mike’s upper arms, still standing close. Close enough for Mike to see Peter’s brown eyes were not a solid block of color but composed of so many tiny flecks and dots and shades and, at the moment, were a real soft amber, glowing and precious, like jewels.

“She wasn’t right for you, and you know that.” Peter rubbed his thumbs in small circles on Mike’s biceps. “Just as she’s not a bad person, and you know that too. But right now…”

“Yeah?” Mike whispered.

“Let’s get that egg off you, hmm?”

Mike stood as obedient as a child, head bent, letting Peter scrape dried egg from him. “You’ll find someone with more in common with you,” he told Mike. “Who appreciates all your facets.”

“Yeah, not just his huge pr—”

“ _Micky—_ ”

“Prowess at music. Jeez!”

“I expected better of you.” Peter finished his admonishment of Micky, who muttered a “ _Sorry._ ”

“I asked you and now I’m telling you: cool it.” Peter stood in front of Micky and tipped his chin up with a finger, making Micky meet his gaze. “Have some consideration and compassion, huh?”

“About time, mate.” Davy clapped Peter on the shoulder in praise.

“And give me that money you just stole back from Davy without him noticing,” Peter continued.

Micky handed it over while Davy was still patting his pockets for it. “What next, you gonna ground me?” he inquired.

Peter smiled. “I just did.”

True. Micky could hardly romp about the city with no money for gas or soda, a substance that seemed to fuel him. Mike smiled too.

“Huh. Weddings bring out the father in people,” Micky reflected.

“Here.” Peter tucked the five-dollar bill into the inside pocket of Mike’s shirt. He lowered his voice. “Take it to put to that groovy jacket you’re hiding in the back of the closet. You should wear it, you know. It must look so cool on you and I’d love to see you in it.”

“I…” Mike gave up. “You…can borrow it, if you like.” He grinned. Peter’s breath, close enough for Mike to detect with his nearness, was sweet-smelling. Thick-smelling, somehow. Mike got it. “You had some of that punch, babe?”

Peter nodded.

“You shouldn’t have any more, okay?” Mike tried to do the right thing whenever possible.

“Okay, Michael.” Peter’s smile was just as sweet, and his lips real pretty, Mike thought. He didn’t say that, of course, just as he didn’t say later, when it was time to play that he thought they all played sexier in their band uniforms. He especially didn’t say that the way Peter was moving with his bass—no; _against_ his bass—was almost like _grinding_.

“Weddings bring out the hips in people,” Micky sighed.

No, Mike didn’t say any of that, any more than he thought _I Wanna Be Free_ was the wrong choice for the bride and groom’s first dance. But, what the bride wanted, she got, on her big day. And probably beyond, for every day of her marriage. Yep, Mike kept his mouth shut about a lot of things, during the wedding reception…

It was later still and he found himself outside, with Peter, laughing like a loon as they decorated the fancy limo the bridge and groom would be leaving in. He couldn’t remember whose idea it was, or why, but he was enjoying it, tying tin cans and an old boot to the back bumper.

“ _Honk if you’re horny_.” He read the sheet of paper Peter was sticking on the back window. “Hey, this one says _Honk if you’ve had the bride_! We can’t use that, man—there’s noise restriction regulations in this state!”

“Grab this…” Peter handed him a square of white, and Mike realized it was the start of a roll of toilet paper when Peter raced around and around the car with the roll, tp’ing the vehicle. They threw the roll underneath too, and pulled it up the other side to tie in a big bow on the top.

Mike regarded it. “Remind you of anyone?” he asked. Before Peter could answer, there was a knock on the window behind them. Micky, just inside, leaned out.

“You do know Shelly and Richard are staying here overnight? That that’s not their car?”

“What?” Mike looked at their efforts. “Then whose—”

“ _Our car!_ ” screeched a woman’s voice and a figure in a white gown advanced. “What the hell?”

“Quick!” Mike shoved himself in the window and pulled Peter in after him. They both landed in a heap on the floor, and Mike stood when Micky was about to launch himself down with them. Kid loved Monkee piles. He suddenly felt very, very tired. Even by their standards, it’d been a busy day. “We got rooms here, right?” he asked. Mrs. P. had block booked.

Sure do.” Micky looked happy about it. Nutjob had something planned…

“Good. Oh, and I want a break from Micky tonight,” Mike announced. “I love you, babe, you know that…” He clasped a hand around the back of Micky’s head to pull him in for a kiss to soften his words. He’d meant it to land on Micky’s head, or forehead, but it hit him in the lips instead. “But not tonight, huh?”

“Wow, you’re drunk,” Micky observed, happily.

“A little.” Mike grinned. “So, rooms?”

“Two, both with queen beds.” Davy popped up to answer. “And you’re sharing with Peter, then? Seems you just called dibs?”

Oh. “Sure.”

Peter looked up from where he was leaning against a corner, noodling on his banjo. “I didn’t know we were staying. I didn’t bring an overnight bag.”

“You don’t need much,” Davy pointed out.

“True, not when I sleep nude.” Peter played a soft chord and bent to pick up his banjo case.

Mike, trying to walk, stumbled. His vision was filled with that ass in tight gray slacks in front of him and his mind’s eye was busy imagining it…out of them. _Woah._ He felt heated. No; he felt… _primal_.

“Weddings _do_ bring out the beast in people,” Micky reflected.

Mike couldn’t help himself. With a “ _Roarrr,_ ” he reared up like a monster over a startled Micky, spun him around and slapped his skinny ass for him. The shocked squeaks Micky gave at this made Peter laugh, hard, until he overbalanced and had to lean against Mike for support.

And that made Mike happy.

“Weddings bring out the joy in people,” Peter commented, looping an arm around Mike’s waist to steady himself.

 _Like you do, in me._ Mike wrapped his arm around Peter in return…and squeezed tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pausing this fic for a bit to write a PWP short - the urge to write Mike/Peter smut is taking me over...


	6. December, 1965 part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to 70mtt for her ideas and encouragment - show her some support, people!

“Pete. Sorry, _Peter_.” He knew Peter preferred his full name. “Look…you’re, well, sure about this?” _This_ seemed to hiss and bounce around the small, intimate room. To whisper and spark around _them_ taking up most of the space in the too-small and much-too-intimate room.

Mike might have said the word ‘look’, but he tried not to, now…when Peter was unbuttoning his shirt. He knew from experience that _looking_ at that just-muscular-enough chest could quickly become _staring_ , which could equally soon solidify to _gawping_. And _wondering_ at how, even in December and in this stark, unflattering lighting, Peter shone with a golden-glow tan.

And yet, averting his gaze felt…wrong. Prudish? _Cowardly_. After all, he’d be seeing—and feeling—a lot more of the guy very soon. And also, on a practical level, Mike tearing his gaze away from the back of Peter in front of him made it land on Peter’s reflection in the floor-length wall mirror…and gave Mike a frontal view of him.

“Hmm?” Maybe Peter’s shirt being half-over his head had muffled Mike’s words.

“Sure about this?” Mike repeated, gesturing to them, the room, the…stuff.

Peter finished his shirt-removal in the shoulder-roll shrug he usually employed to shed his shirts from his body. “I’m easy.”

Yeah. He was. Free and easy. In fact, Mike felt, too damn—

“And who else are you going to do this with?” Peter continued, shaking his hair back into place. “Davy?”

Mike’s scoff was the aural complement to Peter’s grin at that idea. “He’s too short! We’d look ludicrous.”

“Micky?” Peter went on.

“Well, he’s tall enough, but…”

“You wouldn’t want him in that position.” Folding his discarded shirt, Peter nodded. “Talking of, you okay with me taking the top? It means you’re the bottom.”

“The back end.” Mike tried to keep the sour note out of his voice.

“Is that the technical name? I wouldn’t know.” Still flagrantly, blatantly bare-chested, Peter brought up one foot, then the other, to pull off his shoes. His raised eyebrow at Mike reminded Mike he had to peel off too.

“I could be at the front,” he offered, getting to the nub of all this. The root. The freckles. Freck—? Oh, nope, those were on Peter’s back. Mike’s finger’s itched for a pen, to join them in a crazy, warm-tan-skin dot to dot.

“I’m smaller than you. That’s how this thing works.”

Just like the room was small, and _minute_ and _miniature_ and _miniscule_ and lots of other dictionary and thesaurus words Mike studied in preparation for their group Scrabble games. “I know. Just…” And his mouth felt full of the small pebbles their homemade Scrabble tiles were fashioned from, or maybe as if he’d chewed up the large sheet of thick paper that was their board. He gestured, or mimed, what was supposed to be himself holding Peter, Mike’s arms clasping him tight.

“ _Yoga?_ ” Peter queried, mimicking Mike’s movement. Okay, so Mike’s mime skills left a lot to be desired. They’d fucken well be getting in some practice PDQ, with what they were about to do. “Oh, because I do yoga, it might be easier to be the one from behind? Maybe.” Peter pulled on the long-sleeved chestnut-brown T-shirt, the twin to the one Mike had to don too.

“About this.” Mike tried another wave of his hand. “Peter, don’t take this wrong way, but I know you don’t often wear briefs or boxers…”

“Yeah, I like to go free, not be constrained by underwear.” Peter screwed up his face, then regarded Mike. “Do you have a hang-up about nudity? Nakedness? It’s how we were _born_ , man.”

“I know, man. No, I don’t have a problem with it. I just think today, with us, well me”— _getting up close and personal with you_ —“you should wear…something. So I got you…”

While Mike was babbling and fishing out the bag from Harrison’s Department Store, Peter unzipped his pants and pulled them off. The temperature rose in the small changing room, higher when Peter caught Mike’s eye in the mirror and patted an ass cheek. A cloth-covered ass cheek. The hand Mike was holding out the bag with shook. Just a tiny tremble. The teensiest wobble. A barely there shudder.

“I’m wearing some,” Peter said, smiling. “Always do, when I have to put on clothes that aren’t mine. But, wow, thanks!” He tipped out the contents of the bag to hold up the briefs. The rather small—Mike was starting to hate that word, and every synonym of it—briefs. “Oh, these look snug… Should hug tightly when I need firmer control. Thanks!”

Knowing when he was beaten, if not quite how he’d been out-maneuvred, Mike gave in, yanking off his shirt and tugging on the brown tee. Holding eye contact with Peter, to show he wasn’t a prude or a prig or prim-and-proper or—God of hippies forbid—a _square_ , he peeled his pants.

Peter ran a slow gaze over Mike’s long legs, stopping at his crotch. “You know, I’ve always thought it odd that your lucky briefs are red, when your favorite color’s blue.”

Mike had to laugh. “We know way too much about one another, man.”

“But not each other’s… _exact_ size, apparently. There’s… _some_ mystery left,” Peter quipped, fondling the blue briefs Mike had gifted him. The tiny mole above his lip danced as his lips quirked. He stepped gracefully into the lower half of the costume and looped its straps over his shoulders. “Mike? You okay with things?” His tone held concern.

“Not really.” Mike eyed his costume. Their costume. “I mean, in general, no!” He jerked his head at the noise from the space beyond their changing room. “Having to perform before people…”

“Yeah, because performing in public is foreign to you.”

“This kinda thing is! At a department store?” Mike tugged his brown legware on and snapped the suspenders that would keep it in place over each shoulder. Performing at Harrison’s Department Store, to be exact. The establishment that was the purveyor of tight, snug briefs for when firmer control was needed. “I didn’t think, when we wanted to earn extra money for Christmas so Davy could go home to England and you to Connecticut, we’d be doing this!”

 _This_ was his hefting and brandishing the large and unwieldy costume. There was no room to put it on in the small space so he pushed the stall door open and headed out. “You get me?” he added to Peter as he held the door for him.

“Yeah. I dig. Umm, when Davy said he could get us seasonal jobs at Harrison’s in the Santa Monica Mall because he was dating Old Man Harrison’s granddaughter, Rose, I kind of thought—”

“We’d be store assistants, or maybe even cashiers, for the holiday period,” Mike finished for him.

“And maybe we _would’ve_ been Christmas store assistants, or even cashiers, if Davy hadn’t been dating Old Man Harrison’s other granddaughter and Rose’s twin sister, Lily, at the same time,” came Micky’s voice from another cabin.

“Not at the same time,” an unseen Davy countered. “As if! A bloke should be so lucky. No, it was at different times. On different nights.”

“Until that one night when you got mixed up and thought it was tomorrow night.” Mike shook his head.

“And anyway, technically speaking, it wasn’t the double dating that was the problem as much as the getting caught,” Davy added. “What? _What?_ You know I can’t make up my mind. You wrote a song about it.” He peeped over his changing room door, the bit of his face that Mike could see saying, _you got song material from it, so what’s the problem?_

‘“Look out, here comes tomorrow,”’ Micky crooned, sounding like a choir invisible.

“That’s Davy’s song,” Mike said automatically. “Next one I write’s yours.”

“Michael?” Peter asked.

“I’ll write you one,” Mike promised. He really would. He’d been thinking about how best to showcase Peter’s deep, full voice and—

“No— Oh, thanks! But I meant…” Peter gestured at the chestnut-brown nightmare Mike had left to pool on the low bench in the vestibule area. “What’s the saying? If you want to get ahead…”

“Get a head.” Mike picked up the head, to drop it onto Peter’s head. It looked bizarre and a little frightening. He scowled. “So, because of Davy’s philandering, his—”

“Wantoness,” came from inside the head.

“Dalliance,” Micky’s voice chipped in.

“Erm…over-wooing?” Davy tried. He wasn’t taking the Scrabble craze as seriously as the other three, even though their ongoing evening tournament was being played for chores—as in, the offloading of the winner’s onto the loser. He tended to be out more in the evenings and never seemed to have to do his housework tasks anyway.

“Davy’s tom-catting”—Mike abandoned his well-thumbed mental thesaurus in favor of name-calling, and liked how it felt—“we’re stuck, being helpers in Santa’s fucken Grotto!” Which had opened and was filling rapidly, if the shrieks beyond the changing room meant anything. “With Peter and me playing the pantomime reindeer, and I’m the damn back end!” Mike finished, airing every grievance at once, uncaring of how petty they were. They felt a lot to him.

“Never mind, deer,” came from inside Rudolph’s asinine face, Peter’s quip making Mike groan. He reached up to straighten ‘Rudolph’s’ antlers while Peter made the red bulb in the nose light up.

 _I do mind_ , Mike thought _. I’ll be bent over, hugging you around the waist, my head pressed against your…_

“Think _you_ got problems?” Micky’s voice cut in, heralding Davy’s arrival in midst. “Take a gander at the Green Horny.”

“Green…” Mike took in Davy, from his pointy green felt ankle boots to his thick green panty hose and minidress-length green tunic and flopped-over pointy green hat. Davy shook his head, making the bell on the end of his hat jingle. The jangle was quite musical. “Yep, green, all right. Yeah, you look very elfin,” Mike said.

“Impish,” said ‘Rudolph.’

“Puckish,” Mike countered.

“And at least I’m not the chick this time.” Davy’s grin was the size of his face.

“Well, the job specs did call for a girl…” Mike said. One more drop in the bucket of unfairness this whole scheme was.

“And I answered. But I ain’t no call girl!” Micky riposted, sticking a leg out of his stall to arouse their…curiosity before he emerged to stand resplendent in a sparkly, frilly silvery tulle dress with puffed-out skirts, glittery hose on his slender legs, dazzling strappy shoes on his slim feet and a shoulder-length wavy wig, topped with a shimmery crown, on his head. The sparkly, glittery motif carried on through to his makeup, including his cheekbones and eyelids, and the costume’s wings, at his back.

“Wh…” Mike managed.

“Wha…” Peter got out more.

“Why do you always have to be a blonde?” Davy asked, the first to clack his jaw together and get it working.

“They have more fun!” Micky did a twirl, his skirts and ringlets flying, and brandished his wand, with its star on the end.

“So, you’re a _fairy_.” Davy nodded, his tone and gesture saying it all made sense now.

“And what are you, the Jolly Green Midget?” Micky sniffed.

“At least I’m unisex.” Davy squared up to Micky.

“You need _sex_ , you say? _Aww_ , Davy. Dry spell, huh?” Micky flicked the star on his wand and made it spin around.

“You’re the fairy on the top of the tree, right?” Davy asked. “So d’you wanna see what that feels like?”

“How you gonna put me on top of a tree?” Micky questioned.

“Easy. I’ll bring the tree to you, lay it down, then stand it upright…once I’ve inserted it where the stars don’t shine,” Davy promised.

 _Oooh!_ Mike winced, his hole clenching and his eyes watering on Micky’s behalf.

“Hey, easy there, you two. Let’s all get into the same groove on this, yes? We’re all in this bag together. Well, _we_ are.” Peter’s voice came muffled as Mike took a deep breath and wriggled into position behind him, letting the long brown cloth costume cover them, more so when he bent and clasped Peter’s waist, bringing himself flush against Peter’s warm, solid, breathing body.

This was crazy-stupid. They didn’t need to do this. Working the Festive LA tour last month, thanks to Peter’s contacts, had given them enough cash to catch up on rent and utilities arrears, and the exposure from that had gotten then a handful of other seasonal gigs, and all of them a step up from the frat and college bashes and balls they’d played this time last year. And Mike had gotten over-confident—okay, drunk—and overpromised.

Not my fault! he thought, a little mutinously. _Krampusnacht_ was to blame. What even was Krampus Night, and why were there so many people of northern European descent in Beechwood to celebrate it in early December, anyway? All Mike really recalled was being forced, because he was the hairiest, to dress up as a devil, but one who wore all black. Oh wait, no, he remembered stamping and growling on people’s doorsteps and threatening to leave them bundles of the birch twigs he was carrying in his sack, until a shrieking householder opened their door a crack and pushed a glass of schnapps out. _So this was all the schnapps’ fault._ Well, that and the other drinks that other people had given them when after a while a tipsy Micky had lost the list of people to visit and they’d picked houses at random.

Yeah, mixing drinks was never good, especially when it led to the five of them sleeping in a drunken Monkee pile on their sundeck, covered in the sack Mike had been carrying…and the twigs left in it. It had been days before Micky had stopped wailing for Mike in the shower, and Mike had gone in with tweezers, to remove the birch splinters Micky had gotten _everywhere_. And they’d never found out who the fifth person they’d acquired on their _Krampuslauf_ was…one who vanished as the sun rose. St. Nicholas, Peter had said, to soothe Micky. Not _Zwarte Piet_. Which had made Micky go running to look that up, then run home, gibbering, and needing to sleep in Mike’s bed for two nights straight.

Oh, okay, Mike only had himself to blame, promising Davy and Peter they could spend Christmas with their families. _Like I’m the damn Christmas fairy granting wishes._ He’d booked their tickets, which had meant paying non-refundable deposits…which meant they couldn’t refuse this job, even when the nature of it had changed. Changed to him being the ass-end of a pantomime reindeer…

“Well, come on. We should start our shift.” Peter, able to see through the eye holes in the costume’s neck, made for the door, even though he was unable to open it.

“Micky, take our stuff to the staff break room and find a locker?” Mike directed. “Yeah, we’d better start. We can’t leave Old Tom, aka Santa Claus, on his throne all by himself…” As much as he wanted to. “Maybe it won’t be too bad.”

It was. Oh, not just the trying to move, all clippity-cloppity, like a real reindeer, and twitch the tail and not flinch when kids rushed up from what was supposed to be an orderly line to pat—try _slap_ —his sides, but Father Christmas.

Old Tom, a retired fisherman from the harbor, was slumped on the throne like a figure or dummy, so when the bell rang for the official grotto opening, he woke with a jump and a curse, which made the gathering kids jump in turn, and some of them start shrieking and the other—younger or nervier—ones cry. That set the tone for their stint as Santa’s little helpers. Sidekicks. Ass-end of a reindeer.

“Least he looks the part, with that beard,” Davy commented.

Probably the only reason he got the job, Mike reckoned—kids could pull on it, and it wouldn’t come off. Mike hoped no one pulled on it. Tom was known to dislike kids at the best of times…which, with hordes of them racing around, pushing and clamoring, this wasn’t. God alone knew why he took the job. _Same reason we did, probably_ , Mike reflected.

“Do we get hot chocolate drink?” Micky asked, pointing at the colorful ceramic tankard Tom was sipping from, flipping its metal lid open and closed with a thumb to do so. He occasionally stirred it with a candy cane, for extra Christmas texture, and the peppermint smell was strong.

“No, and just as well—see what milk and chocolate does?” Mike, still the ass-end of a reindeer, kicked out a leg at the throne where Tom had dropped off to sleep again between kids for Micky, fluttering around organizing the line, to prod Santa awake.

“You got a use for your wand after all,” Davy commented as Micky poked Old Tom again.

“This attraction’s sure popular,” Peter muttered, turning Rudolph’s head this way and that for photos.

“And noisy,” Mike replied. He shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears and caught sight of the younger two making complicated signals to each other. “Mick. Micky!” Mike risked sticking a hand to beckon him over. “What have you and Davy got going on?”

“We’re rating the big sisters.” Micky rubbed his hands together, looking over the predominantly female, primarily young and female, crowd. “Making our selection…picking ’em off… There’s no competition here, so they’re gonna fall like ripe fruit in a barrel. The barrel being us.”

Mike ignored the mixed metaphor, and that neither Davy nor Micky, little green pea and sexually ambiguous sprite, were probably the kind of guys chicks were looking for. “How d’you know these chick ain’t the little ’uns moms?” he asked.

“Uh-oh,” came from Peter. “To the left…”

“Hello, luv!” Davy had singled out a young girl with a slick, short haircut, her arms around the shoulders of two young girls, one either side of her. “’Ere, let’s get you to the front of the queue, gorgeous. You shouldn’t have to wait, smashing bird like you! And…these can’t be _your_ kids, can they?”

 _Least Davy thought to check_ , Mike supposed.

“No, Davy, they aren’t. These are my younger sisters, Gina and Debbie, and that guy behind you, dressed as a fairy with his wand raised, about to bring it down on your head?” Coco pointed over Davy’s shoulder. “That’s my big brother, Micky.”

“What’s wrong with _Rudolph_?” Debbie asked, pointing. “He’s _shaking_.” 

“Colic,” Coco answered her sister, her glare stopping both Davy and Micky from taking matters further then and there as Mike and Peter took off, trotting in and out of the line of waiting kids, to get to the back and laugh properly.

“So I haven’t seen her for a few months and didn’t recognize her in that outfit, with a new hair-do, but is that any reason to get mad at me? I was paying her a bloody compliment!” Davy was still huffing when ‘Rudolph’ deemed it safe to return to the throne on the plinth. “You’d think he’d be glad.”

“That you were hitting on his _sister_?” Mike was incredulous. “ _I_ think you’d better watch out. I _also_ think Micky’s not the only one of the group who should be wearing glasses.”

“My eyesight’s fine,” Davy protested.

“Yes, but if you had thick glasses on, maybe Micky would take pity on you and wouldn’t hit _you_ for hitting _on_ his sister,” came from Rudolph’s head, Peter’s thoughts in sync with Mike’s as usual. Mike chuckled, making the reindeer give another colic-like quiver.

Micky got his own back later, when Davy was glowing. “Why so gleeful, little man?” he inquired. “Found a leaf to shelter under when it rains? Someone left you a thimbleful of milk?”

“See the redhead?” Davy, bell jingling, gave a tilt of his head at the woman at the head of the line, ascending the low platform. “The one with the big ch.…charms? I’m laying the groundwork for getting a date with her later. She mentioned she’s going to that fancy diamond exhibition in that posh jewelery place next door, and I’m gonna bump into her there.”

“The Gemstone Galleria?” Micky nodded. “Right. You gonna take candy for her daughter?”

“Whaaat?”

Mike couldn’t resist twisting to see the woman whose little girl was climbing onto Santa’s knee. “Mommy? Is this the real Father Christmas? He smells funny,” she whined. The redhead bent to her daughter…revealing a rounded stomach when she did so.

“And she’s pregnant again? That was quick work, little elf,” Micky commented.

Even from inside the reindeer costume, Mike could see Davy’s face pale when the woman winked at him. “Hey, don’t you go off to hide,” he cautioned Davy, seeing him casting glances around for somewhere to slip away to until things had blown over, his usual strategy. “You gotta stay here and keep the line moving.”

“Yeah, don’t be so elfish,” Micky added, throwing a handful of glitter up into the air and blowing it over Davy.

“Seriously, Davy, get the kids moving faster.” Mike ignored Micky. “I don’t like the gleam in that kid’s eye.”

“Which k— Oh. _That_ kid.”

The fat kid who’d vaulted onto Rudolph’s back. Mike bit into the back of Peter’s T-shirt to stifle the scream trying to force its way out from the depths of his lungs, lungs that were taking a battering from the kid’s heels. His knees buckled under the butterball’s weight, making his back dip and his rider pitch about.

“Oi, kid, no. Don’t do that.” Thank God Davy was there to pull the boy off. Mike exhaled in relief. “It’s like this.” And damn it if Davy, a natural equestrian who was unable to resist any horse—even a pantomime reindeer—didn’t hop up himself to show the kid how it was done…and do some fancy tricks while he was up there, even managing to stay on once Mike started bucking, before jumping off to applause.

“What is this, ride Rudolph the reindeer?” Mike hissed at Micky, once he could breathe again, suspicious of the look on his face.

Micky shrugged, making his fairy wings twitch. “Oh, I thought why not offer a little extra…”

“ _Charge_ for a little extra, you mean.” Peter spoke in the tone of one who had younger brothers with money-making schemes.

“Well, you know how there’s height restrictions on rides at Funland? There’s a damn _weight_ limit on this one in Santa’s Grotto, boy!” Mike told Micky. He squeezed Peter around his waist to tell him they were to move, and keep moving, patrolling the line and not staying still enough for anyone to leap on their back. Things seemed to settle, even Old Tom getting quieter, not telling kids who complained about their present they should be lucky they didn’t have to swab the decks to get it, or should be keelhauled for moaning.

Mike was just breathing a sigh of relief about that when a little moppet, her ringlets curlier and golden than Micky’s, started pounding on Old Tom’s chest from her seat on his lap. “Santa won’t wake up!” she cried, hiccupping with tears

Mike was amazed how quickly they all sprang into action around the sleeping or comatose or dead seadog, especially as two of them were in a pantomime reindeer costume and Micky was hampered by his high heels. But in seconds, they’d pulled the throne backward, off the dais, dismantled the gingerbread cottage and rebuilt it around the lolling Santa with them inside it, and then remembered to pluck the girl free and return her to her mother.

“Davy, go out there and entertain the crowd for a few minutes,” Mike directed, standing upright with a loud crack of his back. “You think you can?”

“Him? No problem. You know the light that comes on when you open the fridge? Davy sees it, he grabs his straw boater and cane and does ten minutes,” Micky scoffed. “So what’s up with Santa?”

“ _This_.” Mike had found the reason, down the side of the throne, why Old Tom had been able to tolerate the kids. He shook the bottle of rum, and found it empty, most of it having been tipped into the old guy’s hot chocolate and drunk.

“He’ll have to sleep it off,” Peter said.

“But the kids want Santa!” Micky exclaimed.

“Yeah, Mick. We can hear.” The chants of _We want Santa_ were very audible. “Look, we gotta fill in for him or I betcha none of us will get paid. All we need is a mature man who… Why you all looking at me? Oh. No. I can’t do it, because Peter can’t be a deer on his own.”

“He can have my costume. I fancy a change.” Micky handed Peter his wand and eyed the racks of Christmas Fancy Dress clothing nearby.

“No!” Mike protested. “That outfit is too trampy for Peter! No offense, Mick.”

“A little, Mikey.” Micky looked hurt for a microsecond before his face brightened. “Look! A _Nutcracker_ toy soldier costume! That’d look smart.”

Peter shook his head, making his silky bangs fly from side to side. “I’m not wearing military uniform. That’s so not my bag.”

“Gingerbread Man!” Micky pointed, his eyes bright.

“No. Nothing edible for Pete,” Mike insisted.

“ _Mike?_ ” Peter queried.

“What?” He’d said too much. He blamed the rum fumes, coupled with having been in close proximity to Peter’s warm, shrouded-in-darkness body for making him light-headed.

“We need a chick.”

“ _What?_ ” Mike’s turn to gasp this time, at Peter’s statement.

“It was in the agreement, for the job, remember?” Peter eyed him before turning to the costumes and pulling one free. “I’ll be an angel. They have no sex.”

“You don’t got time to shave your legs!” Micky fretted.

“Peter’s not shaving his legs. The hair’ll grow back thicker and coarser,” Mike said, folding his arms, regretting his words as soon as he caught up with what he’d said…and the look they’d put on Peter’s face.

“He’s right.” Micky nodded. “You look puzzled, Pete, but it’s true. But no point asking Davy to corroborate – he hasn’t grown any body hair yet.”

“Angels have no sex, you say?” Davy peered around the side of the gingerbread cottage to ask. “Ideal for Micky, then, ’cause he doesn’t either!”

“Ba dum _tsh_!” Micky acknowledged the hit, playing on his air drumkit. He snagged the toy soldier costume. “I’m gonna change into this one. Chicks dig uniforms.”

“And scars,” threw in Davy. “Chicks dig those too and I’d be happy to help you out there.”

“Just as long as you help me out…” Mike admitted defeat and took up a red costume with white trim. “When I’m Santa.”

***

Within ten minutes, he understood why Tom, now tipped off his throne and curled on his side in the gingerbread house behind them, had resorted to drink to get through. The kids were a stone-cold nightmare, punching at the padding pillow around his stomach, pulling at the beard on his face, asking questions about the North Pole he couldn’t answer, demanding expensive presents he couldn’t give, complaining about the cheap presents he could and did give…

“What did that Krampus guy do, carry off the awful kids in his sack?” Mike demanded of Peter, who kinda floated, looking ethereal in white. He even had a small harp he played glisses on between clients. “Because I’d carry off that last one, the dweeb in the glasses with his graphing paper and globe, asking how Santa could possibly cover that amount of distance in one night?” And who hadn’t looked convinced at Mike’s weak, “The magic of Christmas?” answer. “He was the worst.”

He wasn’t.

Mike re-awarded that accolade to the little kid who’d gotten so excited to see Father Christmas that he…peed on him. _On me._ “Little help here?” he hissed to Peter, Micky having vanished to hang around the cosmetics section with its glamorous assistants and Davy disappearing at any sign of cleaning being on the cards. “Pete? Peter? Who’re you… Who’s…”

Oh. Mike recognized the man in the suit and cravat. Mike didn’t know if the middle-aged woman with him was his mother, but the sosh looked as conceited and patronizing as he had when they’d met him with Valerie Cartwright. Ronnie Farnsworth.

“Oh.” Ronnie looked down his nose. Literally. “Your little Chipmunks singing act not working out for you, just as I foresaw, so you’re what, a ghost?”

“No, the Monkees are doing just fine, thanks. And I’m an angel,” Peter replied. “Hello.” He smiled at the woman with Ronnie and held out his hand. “I’m Peter—”

Ronnie stepped between them, looking affronted. “You know, I was heartbroken when Mrs. Cartwright took Valerie to New York, but now I’m glad she’s not around.” _Around you_ , he didn’t need to say.

“I’m not. I miss her.” Peter shifted his harp to under one arm to hold out a hand to one side of him, stopping Mike intervening. “You must too. Or have you found someone to take her place?”

Mike had the feeling there was more to this than Peter asking Ronnie if he had a new chick. He didn’t like the way Ronnie was running his gaze, which also wasn’t as indignant as Ronnie probably wanted it to be, up and down Peter. It was kinda like the way he’d eyed him in his band costume when they’d auditioned for Valerie’s party.

“What on earth do you mean?” Ronnie blustered, and before Peter could answer, thought better of it and took the woman’s arm. “Come, Mother. I told you it wasn’t a good idea to try this store for presents for the servants and I was right. It attracts the wrong sort.”

“Bye, Ronnie, Mrs. Farnsworth,” Peter called after them.

“Peter?” Mike heaved his padded red-suited body up to join him. “What was all that? What you said, and the way he was…” _Ogling you._

“Nothing.” Peter played a glissando. “Like I told him when he came onto me when he was drunk at Valerie’s party, he’s not my type. I’m not into hiding and dissembling, using people for cover. Let your spirit fly free and be true to yourself, I say.”

“Be true to your elf, you said?” Micky queried, pointing at Davy and making Davy and Peter laugh.

Mike wasn’t laughing. Not when he had so many questions to ask Peter…and no privacy or time to do so, not at the moment, not here, not now. Later, when it would be quieter and they weren’t surrounded by whining and shrieking children and Mike wasn’t wearing a stupid padded red with white-trim outfit and an even more stupid and too-long white beard. Yeah, Santa’s Grotto couldn’t close quickly enough for him.


	7. December, 1965 part two

Even though the Grotto closing didn’t mean the end of their duties at Harrison’s, Mike was still glad to hear the "Store closing" announcement. The announcement following, however, that had him gasping and staring at the loudspeakers, told him Micky had gotten hold of the public address system’s microphone. The sounds of a struggle and the howl of feedback that followed _that_ told him that whoever was in charge of the in-store announcements had wrested control back from the would-be voiceover _artiste_. Mike _really_ hoped that the few shoppers remaining who might have heard it were too preoccupied in getting home to “kiss a soldier, win a car.”

“Idiot!” Davy jerked his head at the loudspeaker up on high. “He should grow up.”

“He really should!” Mike agreed, nodding at Davy.

“And learn how to phrase things more specifically. Way he put it, it could be any soldier getting snogged.”

“And he should have added more clauses—he basically said he’ll be handing over a vehicle in exchange for a kiss,” Peter added. “We don’t want any pedants Frenching him and demanding the keys to the Monkeemobile for it.”

Mike gave up.

“’Ere, I just realized he didn’t address the announcement to chicks!” Davy’s forehead creased in puzzlement.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily an issue,” Mike and Peter said together, to stare at each other.

“Honestly!” Micky was back amongst them, knocking a dent out of his shako and straightening his epaulettes. His entire toy soldier uniform looked the worse for wear. “There’s no respect for the Forces these days! People should be glad I’m doing my bit for my country.”

His words took Mike back to the tag chasers in Billy’s Boozery, the bar near Lackland Air Force Base, Bexar County, and one base bunny in particular, a huge-eyed, pouty-lipped bottle blonde who was always propping up the bar and greeting men from the base with “Thank you for your service, sir.” And Jerk Johnson, who’d worn his dress uniform on purpose, had gotten a blow job from her in the Gent’s, after which he’d saluted her and said, “And thank you for _your_ service, ma’am.”

“What?” Micky regarded him where he stood, ashamed of himself for chuckling.

“Oh, nothing. Just thinking about bunnies.” _Barracks bunnies…_ “And glad we’re done here.”

Except…they weren’t quite. There was still Old Tom, still snoring and slobbering, still fully loaded, to deal with…including getting the Father Christmas outfit off him and getting him into his own clothes. Two rounds of ‘fingers’, Mike versus Micky and Davy versus Peter gave rise to a Davy-Micky final, which Davy, for once, lost.

“You think you’ve been around and seen it all, but you haven’t until you’re stripping a Santa suit off an old sea dog,” remarked Davy, his tone philosophical, but one that quickly turned to horror. “Oh Jesus. Oh God. My eyes! My hands!” Old Tom was…a free spirit. An _underwear_ -free spirit, one whose… _freedom_ hung like a wrinkly and shriveled sac…of walnuts from under a growth of pubic hair that was straggly, sparse, and gray and very unlike the luxuriant bushy white growth of his beard.

Davy backed away, shaking. “I can’t, fellahs. Not when I have to go pour bleach on myself.”

“On your hands?” Micky gave a sympathy shudder.

“And in my eyes.” Davy held in a retch. “Look, whoever does it, I’ll…owe them, okay?”

“Owe them…enough to set up a date with Abi and I turn up instead to tell her you double-booked yourself and I’m her shoulder to cry on?” came from Micky, all in one breath.

“Her punching bag more like if I stood her up. No.” Davy shook his head.

“Ooh, Tom’s getting cold…” Micky commented, peering. “And while the chill’s making certain parts of him shrink, his, erm, _sailor’s hornpipe_ , on the other hand, is—”

“No! Not Abi. Alison.” Davy glared at Micky.

“Alison? _Man!_ ” Micky scoffed. “Christine.”

“Christine?” Davy’s frown wasn’t him considering, but trying to recall the chick in question. “Ah. Okay. Done.”

“Bet she certainly has been.” Micky rubbed his hands.

“Erm, Mick?” Mike indicated the business at hand, or rather the stark-bollock-naked—literally—fisherman at their feet.

Micky vanished, reappearing almost as soon as he’d gone, holding cooking tongs and a barbecue fork from household essentials, and wearing an apron that said KISS THE… _what?_ Oh, _COOK_ , Mike was relieved to read. He was also wearing a—how? why?— surgical scrubs cap and latex gloves…and attempted in this way to tug up Tom’s pants without touching the man’s body. The other three stared in fascination.

“Anyone else expecting a buzzer to sound if Micky touches his skin?” Peter muttered.

“Yeah, and his nose to go red,” Davy answered.

“His pants keep getting snagged on wrinkles and caught on folds,” Micky commented, leaning in for Davy to blot sweat from his forehead. “This is _gross_.”

“Micky, we should embrace age, positively,” Peter reproved.

“Be my guest.” Micky pulled back his surgical kitchen instruments and waved Peter forward. “ _You_ positively embrace it. Because I don’t wanna touch an _inch_ of it.”

Just then Tom came to and gave a surprisingly girly scream for such an old man. “Gerroff me! What are you landlubbers about?” he demanded, covering his genitals with his only slightly less wrinkled hands. “What you after?”

“Well, it sure ain’t your buried treasure, mister,” Micky retorted, throwing down his kitchen implements.

“Yeah, and we wish you’d hidden your, erm, _doubloons_ away, say in some underwear, man,” Mike said, rolling his eyes.

“ _Whhhhyyy?_ ” Old Tom’s howl and gesture encompassed himself lying mostly naked before a makeshift gingerbread cottage, his clothes strewn on the floor, and the four of them gathered around him, two on either side, and one of them with oversized tongs and spear-like fork.

“You got blitzed and zonked, man,” Micky told him.

“ _What?_ ”

“You got blotto and passed out,” Peter said.

“I did what?”

“Ya got tanked up and hit the dust,” Mike tried.

“Are you saying…” Old Tom struggled to a sitting position and glared at Micky, “That I got three sheets to the wind? That I tied me bowline to me mainbrace? That I had one foot in the crow’s nest and one on the mast?”

“Erm…” Micky’s shrug in reply said he was army, albeit a toy soldier, and not nautical.

“That I was possessed of an applejack gait?” Old Tom swung around to Peter. “That I was fanny-bawed? Muzzy? **”**

“Perchance?” Peter replied, to these historical-sounding saws.

“And you…” Tom swivelled around to Mike. “Are telling me I had a Brannigan on? That I was rushing the growler once too often? That I was trying to beat John Barleycorn?”

“Wut?” Mike went hokey-er-than-thou in the face of the country-mile sayings.

Old Tom inhaled a lungful of air for round two.

“Lads, I’ve got this.” Davy cracked his knuckles. “I’m English, remember? Tom, you were as pissed as a bloody fart, mate!”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Heaving himself to his feet with a salty curse, Tom lumbered away.

Micky snatched up his clothes and followed after him to return them, while Davy blew on his nails and polished them on his chest.

“So _that’s_ why sailors have that rolling walk!” Micky mimed drinking from a bottle as he returned.

Mike…didn’t think Tom had ever actually been a sailor, but thought it best to say nothing.

The store emptied, section supervisors performed final checks of their areas before clocking off for the day, and the Monkees went to eat their set-aside staff meals in the café that was tucked behind the bed section, its entrance a gap between a matching bedroom chair and sofa set, which held a silver…punchbowl? bedpan?—Mike had no idea—and a selection of pillows and soft toys, in turn. Mike couldn’t really imagine having any of it, not even the spindly-legged couch and chair, in a bedroom, just as he didn’t know why the trying-to-be genteel café was situated in the Beds and Bedrooms department, but who was he to judge?

“So,” he asked, when they were seated around their bowls of tomato soup and plates of grilled cheese sandwiches. “How to do this?”

“Easy. Open, insert, swallow.” Micky demonstrated with his food, tipping his soup into his mouth two-handed.

“You left out ‘close’ and ‘chew’,” Peter observed, grinning.

“And, Davy, don’t crack on that being Micky’s instructions for anything else,” begged Mike.

Davy closed his mouth, looking disappointed.

“I mean the security guard work. Night guard, whatever you wanna call it,” Mike continued, referring to the rest of their agreed duties. He fetched over their second courses from where they’d been kept as warm as possible once the warming plate had been turned off.

“Divide into teams? And you two take the first stint? We’ll be back to relieve you,” Micky promised, two dishes in front of him and a spoon in each hand to scoop both the meatloaf and the macaroni cheese options into his mouth at the same time…and swallow without chewing. “Davy and me are gonna hang out at the mall for a bit. I like those high-class chicks at the Gemstones place and they got more of ’em working for a couple days, with those fancy rocks they got on temporary display.”

“And you think they’ll fancy a bit of diamond in the rough?” Davy checked his watch and stood. He probably had every store’s closing time memorized to help him cross paths with whatever pretty assistant he had his eye on. “But yeah—I saw this really glamorous blonde working in there earlier, telling everyone what to do.”

His tone suggested he wouldn’t mind her bossing him around. _Huh_ , Mike thought. Davy generally resisted being ordered to do _anything_.

“Yeah. I need a bit of fresh air anyway. Funny how you miss the sea and beach even spending one day indoors. Box my meatloaf dinner and apple pie pudding up for me?”

Peter nodded and gave him a smile, looking up from forking green salad onto his side plate.

“We’ll be back,” Davy promised.

“Hey, call into the Hive?” Mike asked. “Remember we’re working on getting a firm date or dates from them, not just vague promises.” The club right here in the Santa Monica Mall was fairly new, still finding its feet, and seemed to be the venue for parties, more than anything, the place a certain stratum of kids held their eighteenths and even twenty-ones.

It must be offices’ and clubs’ Christmas celebrations at present, Mike supposed. The Hive opened early, catching trade from people leaving the mall’s restaurants and cafés, seeing as zoning restrictions and locals clinging to them to justify keeping noise down after-hours meant it had to finish earlyish. What was that latest thing, a petition about the place?

“The _Dive_. It’s hardly a boss club on the Sunset Strip,” Davy griped.

“Not yet,” Peter replied. “But we’re getting there.”

Least he had faith in Mike’s plans. Well, supported them, at any rate. “Seems every other local group’s played or playing there,” Mike commented, thinking out loud and recalling the poster he’d seen earlier for the Foreign Agents. That guy Mike had met as Jerry, then Jez, went by J now and— Micky staring narrow-eyed at him made him snap out of it. “Well, just call in, see what you can do,” he finished.

“I will.” The gleam in Davy’s eye suggested not what but _who_ he’d like to be doing: that leggy strawberry-blonde waitress, if the forceful jewelery assistant was nowhere to be seen.

Which was how Mike and Peter, attired in Harrison’s basic brown security guard uniforms, found themselves with first shift in a closed, empty department store. And seeing it closed made Mike realize he hadn’t arranged a way for the others to get back in now the retractable security shutters were down on the store’s main doors and two side entrances, one in cosmetics and one in small electrical goods, the layout seemingly designed for women and men to enter separately and meet in the common ground of hardware. _Damn._ He peered out, as best he could, but the pair were nowhere in sight.

“Just seeing if they were still on the premises,” he replied to his patrol partner Peter’s look of inquiry.

“Did you want to trade, so you could get some free time now? You should have been quicker if you wanted this first shift free, the way those two are.”

 _Those two. The kids. The young ’uns._ Okay, so Peter never used the last expression, but it did seem he thought of Micky and Davy kinda like Mike did, or maybe treated them kinda like Mike did, making things more sorta him and Peter kinda taking care of the other two, the younger pair, the kids, instead of Mike looking after the three of them. Huh. When had that switch come about? Or, no, it was more like a slide, gradual, and— “Huh? _Bea_ , you said? What about her?” He’d missed a little.

“If you wanted to see her, after she finishes,” Peter explained, or repeated, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the kiosk where Bea worked, out in the mall. “You…seem to like her. She’s cute and bubbly.” His grin lit up the dim aisle.

 _And she seems to like you._ But…did Peter like her? He probably did. Peter liked a lot of people. Mike went fishing. “Better not let your lady catch you talking about another chick like that.”

“My lady?”

“Or…ladies.” And from fishing to archery, with Mike shooting his last bolt. He didn’t have that many to begin with and wasn’t sure of his target. “Oh, I ain’t accusing you of pulling a Davy.” When Peter, no longing walking, remained crease-browed, Mike had to clarify. “Couple weeks back, when we were working that tour, you kinda…got together with…well, reconnected with, I guess is more the case…”

“Oh. Tish and Leona.” And Peter’s smile was a shade or two… _deeper_ , perhaps, than his usual sunny beam.

“I’m not…” _Accusing you of anything. Just like I ain’t square._ “…saying anything,” he settled on, plumping for vagueness. “Wouldn’t. Ain’t my place.”

“Hmm.” They had a doctor’s reflector back at the pad, a round mirror on a headband, and Mike felt like Peter was examining him with one or something like it now. “And you’re…cool with it? In general and in particular?” Peter asked.

“I don’t have any call to stand in judgment on you.” Mike meant it. He was in no position to cast stones.

Peter started walking again, casting glances down the aisles he passed, although umbrellas and bags were far from interesting. Least, Mike couldn’t work out why anyone needed more than one of either item. “I wonder if we’re having different conversations,” Peter mused. “As in, talking at cross purposes?”

 _Criss-crossed like a grid_ , Mike thought, feeling so far out of his depth that he needed waders. Or a dinghy. Where was a damn sports section when you needed one?

“But it doesn’t matter, not if you don’t have any hang ups about stuff,” Peter continued.

‘“Stuff’?” Mike thought he’d better try.

“Life, I guess. Or, a philosophy of life. I just dig it all.” Peter turned to Mike. “Like, if people had mottoes, like yearbook quotes, mine would be, ‘I’m easy’.”

“Said I wasn’t accusing you of doing a Davy.” Mike forced a smile.

“Like a record.” Peter indicated the Gifts section, with a selection of classical albums prominently displayed. “People might say one song is best, or there’s one they can’t stand, but actually, a record is just one long groove, right? And I groove on it all.”

Mike’s jokes fell by the wayside of Peter’s open sincerity, and he felt ashamed for making it. “I get that. I think,” he tried.

“Like…I’m attracted to a person as a _person_ , and stuff other people get hung up on is irrelevant to me. Like—”

“Color.” So, Tish. Peter and Tish. They’d seemed a good couple. So why did Mike—

“No…” Peter was doing that professor thing, leading the student to find the answer himself.

“No— _Number._ ” Oh. Peter and Tish and Leona. Mike had hinted at it and Peter had even said it a minute ago. Okay. Mike was hip. And, as he’d said, he was in no position to criticize…even about this. Not with his past.

“ _Gender,_ ” Peter corrected, as gentle as thistledown on the breeze, searching Mike’s face as he said it.

The puff of thistledown didn’t become a lightning strike, or even hailstones. Not when Mike had a feeling about this, well, not bolt from the blue. “Like Ronnie?” was all he could think to say, so there wasn’t a silence. “No. I don’t mean that.”

Peter had said, earlier, that the creep was using Valerie for cover, meaning he didn’t accept himself, Mike guessed. Meaning that Ronnie was at the very least a coward. And in that, Mike was more like Ronnie than he was Peter. He suddenly felt very tired.

“More like Sam, in the Midnight Bookstore.” Peter grinned.

He’d mentioned the name before. “Sam…antha?”

“Sam…uel.”

Yeah, Mike was tired and slow, the dusk outside and inside the store making him sleepy. “Don’t think I know him?” The bookstore place was more Peter’s hangout.

“Oh, he’s a stone groove. You’d know him if you saw him—he has a real nineteen-thirties _jeunesse dorée_ , gilded youth vibe going on?” Peter gave a chuckle. “Like, he wears one of those long white men’s evening scarves, and says ‘blow dope’ instead of ‘smoke grass’? I guess it comes from all the books he reads at work.”

“I guess. You hang out with him some?” He’d never come to the pad. Mike was sure of that.

“Last week we went to that tiki themed café-diner place just along the mall after work—he’d never been in there—and I got a milkshake, and Sam just looked around at everything and said, ‘This is pure retro’.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah.” Peter’s tone indicated he’d really found it so. “So I said, ‘Huh. I ordered chocolate’.”

“What did he say?” Would someone else get Peter? Mike thought he did. Was beginning to. Was working out how much of that, well, dumb blond persona was an act. The why of it, _that_ he didn’t know. Yet.

“Oh, he didn’t. Just took his straw, put it in my milkshake, and blew.” Peter shrugged, still smiling. “You had to be there.”

“So invite me. Next time.” Mike tried a casual shrug of his own in his ill-fitting uniform, not that Peter could see it in the gloom, unless he was focused on Mike. “What’s this Sam cat look like?”

“Oh, slim, willowy, bookish, little glasses. You know. But these striking green eyes.”

And Bea was small and sparkling. And Tisha forthright and forceful. And Valerie polished and self-possessed. Seemed Peter didn’t have a type. Or had a ton of ’em…making him, well, too free and easy for Mike. Mike was no one’s next notch, not even Peter’s. Although…did Peter really get with these people or was he just attracted to them? Had he actually ever been with…another guy?

Mike gathered his courage and took in a deep breath to ask when footsteps and the rattle of clothes hangers on metal rails to the side of him had him spinning around. It took him a few seconds to realize he was looking at Micky and Davy, taking a short cut through the aisles. Had the time passed so quickly? It…tended to, when he spent it with Peter. “Micky?” he started.

“Dumb nuts here needs his wallet. Which is in his jacket. Which he forgot,” Davy explained.

“Wait.” Mike looked from one to the other. “How d’you get back in?”

“Through the emergency door. It’s that small one, right at the back, that comes out in the street, not in the mall?” Davy tilted his head.

Mike vaguely remembered being shown it, when the floorwalker had gone through an orientation with them. “But how? We didn’t hear any warning siren or nothing, and all the exits are alarmed when the store closes!”

“Aww, they get scared by the empty store?” Micky of course. “And that’s only if you open the doors once they’re closed. This door was open.”

“But…” Mike spun from Micky to Davy.

“Oh, it _looks_ closed, from this side and from the outside, but it’s slightly open. I guess it’s just left like that?”

“But wouldn’t that sound the alarm?” Peter started walking back toward it. “The sensor on the frame has to be in contact with the magnet on the door, right? When they’re separated, it trips a switch inside the sensor?”

Mike stared.

“And the sensor lets the system know the door’s been opened. Right.” Micky made a bowing motion to Peter at his unexpected expertise. “But on this door, an extra magnet was stuck onto the sensor, overriding the one in the door and fooling the system! Neat, huh?”

“ _Micky!_ ” yelled Mike, horrified.

“Oh, not me, Mikey!” Micky patted him. “I saw Old Tom go out that way, and noticed it.” He frowned. “Come to think of it, he was—”

Mike didn’t know which of the four of them emitted that squeak-like yelp. He hoped it wasn’t him. He was the one to clap a hand around Micky’s mouth, though, and shove him plus the other two behind a rack of clothes, even if he wasn’t the only one to notice a small cluster of dark, shadowy figures making their way through the aisles. Seemed Davy and Micky and even Old Tom weren’t the only ones to use that unofficial point of exit and entrance into Harrison’s Department Store.

“Michael.” Crouched next to him, Peter swallowed before he continued, in a whisper, “I think the store’s being robbed.”


	8. December, 1965 part three

“Mike? _Mike?_ ” Micky tugged at his sleeve. “I think Pete’s right. Those guys…what we gonna do?”

“We need to take cover,” Mike whispered. He tightened his arms around the others’ shoulders. He hadn’t noticed he was…what did Peter call it, Mother Henning them? But yeah, he was literally pulling them under his long, skinny arms in lieu of wings. They should hide, true, but they also needed to establish a look-out, get intelligence on what was happening…without being seen.

He shifted and the back of his hand rubbed against a thick, soft garment on the rail in front of them. He shook his hand, creating a gap in the line of clothes. In front of that was a display plinth, a couple of feet off the ground in itself and bearing large trunks and stupid props. That should do… Mike nodded.

“Okay. I’m gonna—”

“We’re going to,” Peter cut in. He nudged Davy and Micky, tapped a sleeve of a garment in front of him four times, then indicated the four of them before pointing four times beyond the rack to the platform, his fingers fanned out to indicate their positions, and his eyebrows raised until the others nodded understanding and agreement. Mike stared at the economical, precise, almost military communication he’d bet peter didn’t know he was using. It seemed ingrained, some deep layer Peter was tapping into. Huh. And which they were all buying into—

—which was how they all found themselves scrabbling into the fur coats and scurrying to the display plinth, only to be yanked off their feet into a backward, in-one-another’s-laps Monkee pile: the furs were all chained to their rail…and one another…and the chain was short. “Unscramble!” hissed Mike, feeling like General Vandenberg. “And grab a prop—look like—”

“Dummies?” Peter completed for him, when Mike clammed up, the D word being forbidden.

There were plenty of suitcases and umbrellas to choose from, and just enough slack in the chain, if they huddled close, for Mike to clamber to the top of a short ladder left leaning against three trunks stacked one on top of another, Harrison’s visual merchandiser perhaps being post-modern in creating the display, or perhaps simply having forgotten it.

He ignored the, “Gerroff me, perv,” from behind and below him, Davy objecting to Micky’s close huddle becoming a close cuddle.

“Can you see anything?” whispered Peter.

“I can,” Davy sighed, his head level with Mike’s butt.

“They seem to have gone right to the back of the store…oh, one’s coming this way!” In his agitation, Mike lost his grip and his footing and slipped, causing a Newton’s Cradle ripple through the foursome…and another accidental Monkee pile.

“Quick!” he urged, and within seconds they were a motionless exhibition of human mannequins in fur coats with the hoods pulled up or Russian hats pulled low, ones who were clutching an umbrella, a briefcase…a large pineapple and a medium-sized ladder. And all standing close together, in awkward positions and at odd angles, thanks to the chain which curtailed their freedom of movement. A small figure in dark clothes wandered past them. Mike didn’t dare turn his head, so couldn’t get a good look, only a glimpse out of the corners of his eyes.

The intruder walked past, not carrying anything like the group had seemed to be, and heading for the back of the store like the others, but taking the scenic route, wandering through the aisles and goods, almost. Mike waited long seconds before he moved, letting the others know it was safe to do so.

“Pheww.” Micky spoke for all of them as they slipped the furs off.

Peter eyed Davy. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, just thinking it’s true, what I always suspected about you, way you’re so posh but so loose: you’re _literally_ all fur coat and no knickers!” Davy snorted, slapping his thigh.

“That’s not right! Peter’s got briefs on today,” Mike protested before he could stop himself. “Anyway,” he continued, before Davy or Micky could explore that further. And God, he wished he hadn’t put things in quite those terms… “What do we know?”

“The dude was _short_ ,” Micky observed. “Like, made Davy look tall, short. Hey, do you know him, Davy?”

“Micky! It’s not like short guys all hang out together!” Mike retorted. He paused. They didn’t, right? “Unless…do you—? No, don’t answer that. Sorry. I’m just getting my bearings.”

“Yeah and if you’d been turned round the other way on there, _I’d’ve_ had your bearings.” Davy jerked his chin toward the ladder where he’d been squashed against Mike’s…back bearings.

“What do we know?” Peter, crouching and signaling they should do so, led them forward, keeping them to the shadows of displays and ends of aisles. “That they bribed Old Tom to leave the door open. That’s why, despite being so broke he took on this side job, he had enough money for booze.”

Mike stopped them—the sound of voices came from up ahead.

“Guys, let me handle it. I still got my wand.” Micky slid it free from a loop of his soldier pants. Mike only just then noticed that Micky was still in uniform and Davy in a sprite costume. The four of them, especially Micky, tended to be in costume so much, it barely registered. Mike added it to the list of weird things about them and/or their pad.

“Oh, what you gonna do?” scorned Davy. “Make their teeth fall out? ’Cause that’s the Tooth Fairy’s wand, right?”

“Huh? Is that an English thing? ’Cause here it’s the _Truth_ Fairy, and—”

“ _Guys!_ ” Mike signaled for silence: the group of dark-clothed men were at the very back of the store, and seemed to be looking for the short flight of stairs downstairs, to the basement. No. Couldn’t be. All that was down there was the storeroom and the employees’ break room. Typical of this place that it was in the basement. He reached to grab a mirror from a slew of Christmas gifts displayed on a raised rectangular counter and pulled the others to sit behind the counter, their backs to it.

“Davy and Micky, you should go,” he whispered, pointing down the store to the mall outside. “I reckon those crooks would’ve closed that emergency door behind them, when they busted in, to stop anyone else crashing the party, but just force it open. Pete, you go with ’em, make sure—”

“No.” Peter’s head shake was emphatic. “I’m staying with you.”

“It’s not safe!” argued Mike. They were wasting time. He held up the mirror, so he could see behind him, see the robbers. The robbers…who weren’t robbing. Mike took stock of what counters and displays he could see, and what he’d walked past. “Hey. These crooks, they didn’t take cameras, back there, and they’re not stealing watches, or hi-fi equipment...”

“Maybe they’re not music lovers? Think all modern music is long-hairs screaming and shouting? Or they don’t like the cheaper brands Harrison’s carries?” Micky of course.

“And where they making for? The break room?” Mike continued thinking out loud.

“Taking a break before they start. Good idea—make sure they’re all rested and fresh. I like to do that,” Micky deadpanned.

“And the furs.” Davy seemed to agree with Mike. “You’d think thieves would go after high-end goods like that, right?”

“Oh, fur coats make you look fat.” Micky waved a hand.

Wisecracking was what he did when he was nervous, or scared, even, so Mike didn’t have it in him to ask him to cool it.

“Or, or get mistaken for a bear, even,” Micky continued. “If there’s hunters around, ain’t no breeze picking shotgun pellets outta your—”

“ _Ursus_ ,” Peter finished for him.

“Shotgun…” Mike echoed, slowly.

“Yes?” Peter replied.

“No, I meant…the store carries guns and ammunition.” Mike peered over to the sporting goods aisle. “We could help ourselves…get kitted out and stop these crooks in their tracks.”

“And claim a nice fat reward! I like how you think.” Micky voiced what Mike was only kinda sorta half-thinking and slapped him on the back. “I know how to handle a gun. So do you, right?”

“Sure.”

“Well. You’re from Texas.” Micky nodded at Mike. “That’s where I learned too! Davy?”

“No, never been to Texas. But I’ve often thought I’d like to.” Davy used Mike’s mirror to smooth down his hair. “I mean, I like Indian cooking, and Texas food’s spicy, right? Least, Mike cooks a hot chilli.”

“Oh yeah.” Micky mimed fanning his open mouth to cool it down. “Last one he made, he got hold of those little green chillies that were _off the charts_. Literally—they took one look at the Scoville heat units and laughed in their face. That meal had me choking, sweating, _and_ crying for mercy.”

“Crying for your mommy, actually,” Davy corrected. “You—”

“ _Guys!_ ” Mike wanted to bang their heads together. “Peter?”

“Peter’s not so keen on spicy food as we are,” Davy reminded him.

“I know! I mean can he use a gun! Peter? Can you… Peter? Where—”

“He’s gone!” said Davy and Micky in unison.

“Peter!” hissed Mike, scrambling to his feet and hurtling after him. He got to the front of him, almost at the stairs to the break room, to stop him.

“We are not getting firearms. Guns don’t solve anything.” Peter’s face was set and the look in his eyes made Mike ashamed. He dropped back…and Peter bounced down the short flight of stairs before Mike could stop him. He halted, frozen at the top of the steps, watching two men whip around at Peter’s arrival in their midst.

“Hey, guys?” Peter held out his hands in a not quite hands in the air, not quite shrug. “All property is theft. I get that.”

 _Oh my God, he’s gonna hippie at them._ Mike’s heart pounded in his throat, blocking his airway. He waved wildly behind him to keep Micky and Davy back.

“And you’re here to rob the place?” Peter swiveled his head from one guy to another. _One…two…so where—_ “You don’t have to do that, you know,” he assured them.

“Oh, we know,” came a voice from behind him.

_Three._

Peter whipped around, half-skidding on some packing chips as he did so, which had him stumbling toward the third man. The guy, maybe thinking Peter was going for him, hit out at Peter, catching him on the jaw and the force of that plus the littered, slippery floor turned Peter’s almost skid into a full one. He flew backward, his arms windmilling, and went down. But that wasn’t the worst. What was worse, was _horrifying_ , was that his head struck the edge of a wooden packing case as he toppled, and he bounced off it and lay as if felled.

And it happened so quickly that Mike couldn’t do anything to prevent it, not even yell, until Peter lay still, which was Mike’s paralysis lifted and he sprang forward, taking the stairs in a crazy jump, crying “Peter!”—but couldn’t reach him. Not when the dark-clad men turned to him, the slimmer, wiry one who was going for his weapon flanked by the other two, so they formed a line between Mike and Peter’s downed body.

“Woah woah woah! Easy there, hotshot,” warned the one in the middle, holding up the hand that wasn’t holding a gun like a traffic cop.

“Who the hell is this?” demanded the guy who’d hit Peter. “This place is supposed to be empty! You said—”

“ _Peter!_ ” Mike yelped again, feinting to one side then trying a rush through the middle of the three-man cordon. To no avail. It was solid and a push from the broad-shouldered, thickset guy on the right had him stumbling backward, like Peter had done.

“So, your friend there’s Peter. More like little Saint Peter, right, those attitudes?” The wiry, angular one snickered, mimicking a prayer pose with his hands. “That make you Saint Michael?”

Mike didn’t know which of the three he wanted to kill the most. _Kill first._

“Who’s the kid?” asked the one on the left who’d struck Peter. Him. He’d be first. No, last. Make him watch the others meeting slow, painful demises. And calling him _kid_. They weren’t much older than him. Late twenties, maybe, a bit young to be seasoned, hardened career criminals, Mike felt.

“I’ll tell you who he is. Who they are.” The wiry one gestured at Mike’s uniform and half-turned to indicate Peter, behind them. “Some saps hired at the last minute for store patrol duty.”

“But Harrison’s don’t have night guards,” protested the bigger guy. “That’s why we—”

“Not usually, no. So, wanna fill us in?” the wiry one invited Mike. “Cause I’m betting I’m right and you got a bad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sooo, when you’re ready? Like…right around now?” He gestured with his gun.

“You’re right. It’s just a temporary security guard position. Just monitoring the premises over this Christmas week.” Mike swallowed down his fury and fear for Peter and looked from one man to another. Wiry and Angular had diamond-cold, ice-gray eyes, and Tall and Broad a craggy face and blue eyes. Those two guys seemed…tighter than the third, Mike felt.

“See?” His questioner gloated to the other two. “Coupla lousy temps, picking up some extra cash. Only, not much, I’ll bet, if Old Man Harrison’s as mean as they say.”

“Yeah. Temps,” Mike agreed, willing the gang to suppose that the store owner’s miserly ways had him employing only two guards. If these creeps didn’t go searching for any others, maybe Davy and Micky could get clear, raise the alarm. “So you wanna rob the place, go ahead. We won’t be playing the hero—not worth risking ourselves over a few household goods.”

“Kid, you have no idea,” scorned the third guy, the one who’d spoken to Peter. “So, ya think you’ll just be strolling off home, huh?”

“Ha! You ain’t going no place.” The big guy backed him up. Then he turned to the shorter, wiry one and asked, “How?” to receive a clip around his head for his question. Or his stupidity, Mike wasn’t sure. All he knew was they backed off a little, to confer, during which Mike strained to see Peter, to assess his condition. He couldn’t see any blood, so it didn’t seem Peter could be too injured. Right?

He tried to listen to and observe the gang too, finding out as much information as he could. The training he’d been sent on recently, that none of the others knew about and never would, if Mike could help it—and he was doing everything he could to prevent it—had taught him to do that much at least, build up a picture, seek out existing patterns and possible weaknesses to exploit. Right now, there was dissention in the ranks, over what to do…with him and Peter.

“Here? Now? No, too messy.” The guy with the gun had the final say, for all the other guy, the one who’d hurt Peter, was the most ruthless. And wow, Mike, hoping his gulp wasn’t audible, was glad about that. “And because these ‘wrong place wrong time’ schmucks we got here? We can use ’em.”

Which was how Mike found himself shoved into the break room, the space with employee lockers and a table and stools, beyond this storeroom, or packing room, or whatever the hell it was…and tied up. “Oh, _come on_!” he tried to protest at his ankles then his wrists being tied together—only it came out muffled, because he was gagged as well. His heart squeezed tight and stopped for long, long seconds when Peter was carried in over the big guy’s shoulder and tipped to the floor like grain from a sack to be tied up too, and only started beating properly again when Peter groaned and stirred.

“Benny, come on!” called the leader, the wiry gun-toting guy. “Think we’re here for a rest cure?”

“Jeez, G-Man!” Benny swung back to the storeroom. “You’re not the boss of me!”

The bickering continued, beyond the jumble of wooden and cardboard boxes and cases, but Mike was done with it. All his attention was on getting his hands free so he could tend to Peter, but wrenching and twisting, pulling and straining, brought him nothing except sore wrists from the rope. Dammit! Mike got to his knees, looking about for something sharp or serrated to rub the rope against, free himself of it that way, but Peter groaned, needing Mike now.

Mike paused, trying to see inside Peter’s head. It sounded hippie-kooky at best, bughouse-crazy at worst, and Mike still hardly believed it, but the four of them had a weird thought transference or mind reading—or brain-to-brain speaking, for all Mike knew—thing going on between them. He didn’t understand it and none of them talked about it, and he could rationalize it as them being in tune with one another or on the same wavelength—hell, even that they spent too much time together. It was sometimes inconvenient, sometimes… _humiliating_ , but he had reason to be grateful for it now.

He focused in on Peter and gasped. Inside Peter’s mind was a whole constellation of stars wheeling against an inky blue-black sky, both beautiful and scary. The stars didn’t just stay little pinpricks of white or silver, but burst into loud, glowing colors the more Mike watched. Brash, wild colors like spills of paint, all streaks and pools that pulsed, grew, and melted, until only one was left, a color Mike didn’t know, a drop of pure light and heat, ready to expand, to pulsate, to fill the screen.

 _Woah._ It was too private to snoop on and too much to handle, making Mike turn away. _Must have been some knock on the head_ , Mike…hoped. He’d think about that later. He knee-walked over to the row of lockers that didn’t lock, because they were just cupboards with small lever handles on, to close them…and that he could use to work the gag free.

At least he thought he could, wriggle the slim metal lever under the cloth around his mouth and rock until the fabric was loosened enough that yanking his face down quickly would jerk the gag enough to get it free. It worked! A quick flick of his head had the ex-gag sliding from the handle to drop uselessly, harmlessly, around his neck, and Mike could turn back to Peter. He shuffled to him and threw himself alongside him. He should assess his head for injuries, check his pupils for reactivity…both things impossible with his hands tied in front of him. Getting the gag off him was a priority.

He forced down all the panic and fear trying to engulf him. They’d been in dangerous situations before, all four of them , or various combinations thereof, but the pain and horror that drenched Mike in ice-cold water when Peter, _Peter_ , was hurt or confused? He didn’t know when it had started, but did know it was growing and…he’d examine that later, too. Much later.

The strip of cloth tied around Peter’s mouth was similar to what they’d used on Mike, and if Peter had been lying on his front, Mike might have worried at the knots with his teeth until he’d gotten them untied, But Peter was laid out on his back and Mike wouldn’t risk rolling him over, unless he had to. No, he could get his teeth to the fabric gagging Peter and loosen it as he had done his, by pulling and wrenching. He focused all his energy and attention on this, ignoring the strange whirring and banging noises from the storeroom beyond.

The gag bisected Peter’s mouth, puffing his lips out around it, and for Mike to bite at the cloth fabric meant he had to bring his mouth not just close to Peter’s but, well, _on_ it, his lips rubbing against Peter’s as he made gentle up-and-down and back-and-forth movements.

Which was when Peter came fully to and, much like Old Tom earlier, at a _really_ bad moment. What was it with people waking up at awkward times? Mike wondered, his heart stuttering as it hadn’t on the earlier occasion. At least Mike hadn’t stripped Peter, wasn’t doing things to his naked body. _What?_ Where— _why?_ —did that thought—

No, he was only…well— _oh God_ —deliberately pressing his mouth to Peter’s. That wasn’t so bad, right? Not even with looking deep into Peter’s eyes, and seeing his pupils dilate. At least, not until Peter, his eyes opening wide then wider, angled his head just so, up and slightly to the right…to return the pressure Mike’s lips were exerting on his.

Mike froze, because it was as if a spark had lit up every nerve ending in his body, making them thrum and sizzle and— No. No, that couldn’t be allowed to happen, any more than he could permit himself to return the pressure… _to kiss back_. Peter was confused, disorientated, probably concussed… He tore his mouth free. “Pete, I-I gotta get this gag off you. Okay?”

Peter regarded him for a moment before nodding. They were still so close that the movement slid the tip of his nose down Mike’s…which made Mike catch his breath with a suddeness as sharp as a blade. “Okay,” Peter whispered, thankfully lying immobile while Mike finished his tugging and snuffling and…Oh God, Peter’s lips were so soft…and Mike’s sudden, urgent boner so hard. _It’s just friction_ , he tried to communicate. _Nothing personal. Honest._ With a sudden teeth-wrenching snap, the strip of cloth was tugged loose and, work done, Mike sat back, thankful his hands were bound in front of him and he could cover his crotch.

Peter swallowed, then ran his tongue over his teeth, then his lips. “Thanks. I kind of want to say, ‘was it good for you, too?’” He smiled.


	9. December, 1965 part four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to 70mtt for the suggestions about the gang!

Mike moved back for Peter to struggle to a sitting position opposite him. “Wise-guy, huh? And here was me thinking you’d say ‘You could at least buy me a drink first’.”

Black humor. Gallows humor, Davy called it…which was a stupid thing to be thinking right then and then, but better than the things he had been thinking…imagining… _longing_ … “I’m gonna ask you a couple questions, good buddy,” Mike continued, groping for some remnants of his leader-of-the-pad role. “Okay?”

“Why do I think none of them is to ask me if I’ll go steady? Oh right, because I’m not that good a kisser.” Peter aimed for a self-deprecating shrug and head roll that came out as a wince. “Sorry. Don’t answer that. I wasn’t fishing…and if I was, I’d hate for there to be crossed lines.”

“I’m putting all this down to the knock you took on the head.” Safer. Easier. _Cowardly_. Yep, Mike would cop to all three.

Peter eyed him and sat straighter. “Go ahead, Michael. You need to assess I’m orientated. Person, place, time? You want full name or will ‘Peter Tork’ do? We’re in the break room at Harrison’s and I’m guessing by the little amount of beard scruff we both have that not much time’s passed on the same evening of the day we started our stint here.”

“Okay, smartass.” Mike grinned, his heart soaring with relief. Other households might not be proficient in basic field medicine, including tests for disorientation, but theirs was. “Let’s up the ante and add _event_ as a category. And no, before you ask, you can’t choose American History or Literature instead. What’s going on around you?”

“Well, you, trying not to let on how worried you are.” Peter regarded him. “You worry about me more than you do the others. No—” He continued before Mike could interrupt. “Not more, but _differently_. Huh.”

Mike really didn’t like the speculative, almost calculating gleam in Peter’s eyes at that. They shone not so much their normal warm brown but a clearer topaz. It was…unsettling.

“And beyond that, or beyond here, is not robbing the store, but digging,” Peter concluded.

It was. Mike hadn’t paid attention or made sense of the noise earlier, but he did now. “They’re tunneling?” he exclaimed, cocking his head to catching the whir of drills. “But… Oh. Not robbing Harrison’s. Tunneling into—”

“The expensive jeweler’s next door, one that’s hosting an exhibition of rare diamonds this week!” Peter finished for him.

“Yeah, and I guess they put the rocks in the underground safe at nights,” Mike added. “But the drilling and digging noise? It must be audible in the mall, or in the street?”

“Maybe not, with the loud music from the Hive.”

“Loud music that starts early all this week, with all the Christmas parties. The same week the display’s on and they got themselves a willing helper to let ’em in here to do their work.” Mike slumped against a table leg. Wow. Talk about planning. All bases covered. And yet, those goons hadn’t seemed that smart. _Didn’t_ seem that smart, not the way the one or ones still in the storeroom were arguing and bitching via walkie-talkie with the one or ones inside the tunnel they were making. 

Mike was so focused on that, thinking so hard about their predicament it took Peter knocking his foot into his and jerking his head up to make Mike look up too. And even then it took him a few seconds to understand what he was looking at, through the slats of the ceiling vent: a pale sliver of face and a dark tangle of curls. Micky!

“What—” Peter started at the same time Mike asked, “How—” before they both decided it didn’t matter.

“You okay?” Micky whispered. “Especially you, Mike? Why were you staring at Peter like that? You look kinda—”

“We’re fine. I’m good,” Mike cut in. “Fill us in?”

“We saw you both confront those creeps, and boy, did I wanna be a part of it, but Davy said we’d be more use on the outside. Sorry.” What they could see of Micky’s expression looked rueful.

“S’okay,” Peter told him. “Davy was right. You did well.”

“But they’re not robbing Harrison’s!” Mike hissed. “They’re after the diamonds in that galleria place next door!”

A low whistle reached them from on high, followed by a sticky sort of slithering sound, and the vent was empty for a minute, before Micky returned. “I saw ’em,” he whispered. “Well, one. Some ox of a guy playing jacks while he waits for the others who’re drilling a tunnel. Hey, you know—”

“Mick, stop rattling that vent!” Mike interrupted him, scared the noise would have Benny coming in.

“I gotta get it off to drop down and untie you,” Micky replied.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Peter spoke slowly. “Even if you could get down here and free us and we all get back into the ducts, the gang might have finished by the time we can get help. And if they see we’re gone, they might call their heist off, and pull it somewhere else. I think it might be best we stay here.”

“And talking of getting help, why haven’t you?” demanded Mike.

“I tried, Mikey! I ran to Officer O’Riley, out on his beat, and spilled the whole story, but he didn’t believe me!”

Mike closed his eyes. Micky—well, all of them—had had run-ins with the patrolman before and— A thought struck him and had him opening his eyes. “Tell me…you weren’t still in your toy soldier costume.”

There was a pause. “I…can’t do that, Mike…because I was. Yeah, I see now where I went wrong,” Micky admitted.

“ _Was_?” queried Peter, sensitive to nuance.

“Well, I’m not _now_.” Micky shifted enough that they could see bare shoulders and chest. _What—_ “I hadda strip off and grease up for the duct pipes! I got the lubricant with me to add more as I go along. I mean, I’m slim, but even with all the grease, it’s hard to fit into a tight shaft. You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Mike replied without thinking…and Peter stared at him.

“I’ll go back out and try again,” Micky promised.

“Dressed,” Mike reminded him.

“Well of course!”

“And not in the gingerbread man costume,” Peter threw in.

“ _Fine!_ ” Micky snapped, after a pause.

“Where’s Davy? He okay?” Mike thought to ask.

“He’s outside. We’re communicating by walkie-talkie. Here, take this one. I helped myself to some nice little electronics, including a few two-way radios that I tuned all into the same band…” Micky’s fingers forced one through the slats. “Oh, sorry, Peter. I should’ve said to duck. Hope that wasn’t the same side of your head that got bumped earlier.”

“No. The other.” Peter shook his head as if to clear it.

“That’s okay then.”

Was it? But there was no time to get into that. “Batteries?” Mike queried, with experience of Micky’s brilliant ideas in theory that lacked a vital element or two in practice.

“Oh, right. Grabbed a bunch…” Micky tossed them down one at a time, aiming in between Mike and Peter where they sat, his throws mostly accurate.

 _Wait. If Micky’s got no clothes on, how’s he been transporting these things?_ Mike thought, jumping back as if electro-shocked at Peter’s answering, _Not how…but…where. So better not ask. Any more than I should ask him if he’s got any aspirin on him, right?_

Dang if their thought-speak abilities weren’t scary. As scary as was the thought of handling the walkie-talkie and…its batteries. “Davy.” Mike fought to get back to what was vital. “Micky, tell him to go to The Hive. Make them stop the music—these crooks are using it as a cover for their drilling.”

“Right!” Micky snapped his fingers. “Back soon. Boy, that gang lucked out, huh?” came in his lube-coated slip-and-stick-and-unstick wake.

Mike opened his mouth to correct him, but Peter shook his head. “Leave it. He’ll figure it out,” he advised, so Mike closed his mouth again.

“So, I guess we wait?” Peter gripped the transceiver device between his knees and Mike helped nudge the batteries close for Peter to deal with.

“Guess so.” Mike leaned back a little to listen to the whirring and hammering from the room beyond the half-wall and the mess of wooden and cardboard boxes. “And we don’t have a set of jacks, like that big tuna, Benny, to help pass the time.” He paused. _Wait a minute—_

“I spy?”

“Why not.”

“Me first.” Peter took a quick glance around the unlovely space. “I spy with my little eye, something beginning with B R.”

“Break room?”

“Yeah.” Peter grinned, showing that slightly off-kilter right lateral incisor and canine that Mike found more interesting that any straightened regularity could ever be.

“Me now… I spy with my little eye, something beginning with R.”

“Rope?” Peter answered, raising his bound wrists.

“Right.”

“Okay… I spy with my little eye, something beginning with F.”

“Floor?” Mike drummed his heels on it.

“Oh, you played this before.” Peter’s voice was lower than usual, sort of smooth. It should have been soothing, and in some ways it was. Just…in some ways…it wasn’t. “Gonna make it harder?”

“ _Wut?_ ” Mike battled a blush.

“Try a difficult I spy. I spied, even.” Peter bent his head to concentrate on the walkie-talkie, and Mike was grateful for the reprieve. Those eyes, more amber than topaz on their way back to brown, were still too assessing. Too _knowing_.

“Difficult. Gotcha.” Mike coughed to make sure his voice worked right. “I spied with my little eye, something beginning with N M S I L.”

“Naked Micky covered…no, slathered in lube?”

“Yeah,” Mike admitted. “It didn’t really register at the time, but now—”

“You can’t get the image out of your head.” Peter nodded.

“Can you believe that nutjob went out to get help still wearing that tinpot soldier costume?” Mike scowled. They’d probably be out of here by now if that ding-a-ling hadn’t—

“Stay loose. Could have been worse. At least he didn’t take to the streets in his frilly fairy frock,” Peter said.

“Nice alliteration there, buddy. And he wouldn’t do that. It’s too chilly to be frilly.”

“Nice rhyme there, babe.” Peter’s ‘Mike’ voice was getting better all the time. “You’re probably right.”

“Yeah. He’s an Angeleno, not hip to the cold.”

“Oh damn. Talking of the cold, I just thought, we didn’t tell him he couldn’t go out in the snowman costume.”

Mike opened his mouth to reply but all that came out was a giggle, and Peter giggled too, making Mike giggle more, which upped Peter’s. Mike felt _high_ , almost.

“And you know what else I just thought?” Peter brought a knee up to wipe his eyes. “That you know how you often ask Micky if he’s naked? This was one occasion, indeed, _the_ once occasion you—”

“Should’ve!” Mike spluttered for him.

“ _Pstt!_ ” came from above, followed by, “And no, I’m not saying you’re drunk, although it looks like it.”

“High. On high?” Peter clarified, looking up at the vent. “Hi, Davy.”

“You’re not naked,” Mike guessed.

“What? I thought Peter was the one who got conked on the bonce?”

“Twice. Micky threw something and hit me on the head as well.” Peter was almost fluent in Davy-speak. “So, are the authorities on the way?”

“About that…”

“Oh God.” Mike would have buried his head in his hands if they weren’t tied at the wrists.

“I went for help in The Hive. I told them to shut off the music, like you said—”

“So the drilling can be heard.” Mike jerked his head toward the sound.

“But they thought I was a local resident—well, I mean they asked if I lived locally, and I said I did—who was in there protesting.”

“Trying to get the place shut down. Damn!” Mike kicked the table leg in frustration

“In retrospect, the costume didn’t help. They thought it was part of the protest, getting the place closed down for ‘elf’ reasons. They thought it was a stunt,” Davy clarified.

“Michael…” came in a warning tone from Peter as Mike inhaled a loud, angry breath, preparatory to letting Davy, another forgetful costume wearer, have it. “We’re all in this together, remember.”

“Just, you guys are always in costume so much, this is the sort of thing that happens!” Mike yelped, all on one long exhalation. The breath had to go somewhere.

“Hey what’s going on in there?” came a voice from the other room.

“Nothing, Benny,” Mike assured him.

“Oh, okay then,” Benny replied.

“But I saw movement in that jewelery shop, so I’m going to try there. See if I can warn her.”

“ _Her?_ ” Mike asked.

“The glamorous blonde assistant who tells people what to do,” Peter guessed. “Who’ll be so grateful for Davy’s efforts that she’ll tell him he can choose his own reward…”

“And he’ll say _she’s_ the most beautiful jewel in the store,” Mike finished for Peter.

“Was gonna go with her eyes shine brighter than any jewel in the shop but yours works better. Ta!” Davy’s hand emerged from the vent in a thumb’s up before he turned and went, leaving them alone.

“Hm, guess we’ve exhausted the I spy possibilities,” Mike mused. “A memory game? I went to the store and I bought something?”

“I went to the store and I bought something and garlic.” Peter gave a too-innocent smile at Mike’s puzzled frown. “Oh, I thought you’d started, with ‘something’, and it was my turn next and as ‘something’ ends in G, I chose garlic. If we’re playing Connecticut last letter-first letter rules…”

“Okay…” Mike threw the Connecticut Con Artist a narrow-eyed look but continued, “I went to the store and I bought something and garlic and…chilli peppers.”

“I see we’re making a good ol’ Texan dish again,” commented Peter and the wry, sly humor of it cracked Mike right up.

“You sure nothing’s going on in there?” called Benny.

“Quite sure, thanks, Benny,” Peter shouted.

“That’s all right, then.” Benny subsided.

Mike shook his head. By mutual, unspoken assent they decided to be quiet for a while. Peter passed the walkie-talkie to Mike and he fiddled with it, almost jumping out of his skin when he got it to pick up the voices of the crooks, inside the tunnel, communicating with Benny next door. After that, Peter lowered his head and Mike guessed he was meditating. He was getting more and more into all that mumbo—spiritual stuff. Peter raised his head and opened one eye at him then, the twist to his lips saying _nice save there, cowboy_. Or so Mike thought. Whatever, it had him smiling in turn.

Mike forced his mind to work on the chord changes for the new song he was writing, wishing he had his guitar and a pencil and paper. Oh, and that he wasn’t tied up in an uncomfortable cold basement. Peter shifted, and Mike hoped his head wasn’t aching, after that knock it’d taken. And the batteries that’d hit it.

“I wonder how Davy’s getting on,” Mike mused.

“I’d say…not great.”

“What makes…” Mike started to ask, trailing off and following Peter’s gaze over his shoulder…and seeing Davy stumbling in to join them. He was followed by a shrewd faced, smartly dressed blonde—who had a gun at his back. Davy, still dressed in that goddamn Santa’s little green helper costume, shrugged.

“Benny? Georgy? Get in here,” the blonde demanded over her shoulder.

Benny came, shoving metal jacks and a bright red rubber ball in his pocket, followed by the thinner wiry Georgy, brushing dirt off himself, both brightening to see the chick. Mike stared. The trio…

“Where’s Curley?” The woman cut off the men’s questions.

“Here, mom,” answered a short guy, bounding up for a hug. The short guy who’d passed them earlier and who…wasn’t a guy at all but—

“The little kid who peed on m—on Santa!” Mike exclaimed.

“I was casing the joint,” the pre-schooler lisped.

“I thought I told you to watch him while I was working,” the woman continued, fixing the other crooks with a steely glare.

“Sorry, Tessie.” Benny pulled her and the kid into a one-armed side hug.

“Yeah. Sorry. He wanted to go play.” Georgy pointed to the toy car in Curley’s hand. “Couldn’t say no…” He ruffled Curley’s…curls.

“You two…” The blonde shook her head at Georgy and tapped Benny on the jaw with her fist. Both men kissed her, one on each cheek, the trio’s affection palpable.

 _Wait._ Mike looked from Peter to Davy then back to the gang. A sharp, wiry guy, angular, with a blade of a nose. A bigger burlier guy who played jacks. A know-it-all woman boss…

“Big boss,” Davy fake-coughed.

“Big _man_ ,” Peter corrected on a faker one.

Mike slotted the pieces into place. Georgy – George. Benny—Lenny. Tessie…

“Tessie…Kowlaski?” Mike queried.

“As was. Now Tessie Lesser-Chaney.” She flicked Georgy’s then Benny’s ear as she said their surnames, smiling at her guys. Mike looked from them to Curley…who looked like all three of them. _How—_

“D’you know?” Tessie demanded.

“What?” Mike stalled.

“My maiden name.”

“You look like your mother,” Davy rushed in.

“We saw her perform live. Singing a medley of songs,” Peter smoothed over.

“She’s not…active now?” Mike asked.

“Doing time. Along with their dads. S’how we all met. Visiting day. We even got married in the prison chapel.” Tessie took Georgy’s handkerchief to wipe dirt from Curley’s hands.

There was so much to unpack about that, so many questions it begged, but before Mike could even think of how to formulate one—and indeed, if he should—a burst of crackle came from the transceiver in Benny’s hand, resolving into a man’s voice.

“He’s through!” Benny shouted.

“Finally. I was beginning to think that specialist driller guy I hired was all hammer and no bit.” Tessie sniffed. “Benny, tie the sprat up.” She indicated Davy.

“It’s pronounced ‘sprite’,” he muttered.

“Leave the rope on his hands a little loose…and loosen those two’s a little,” Tessie directed, signaling to Georgy to return to the tunnel.

“But they could get free!” Benny protested.

“Exactly.” Tessie checked Benny’s work on their ropes. “Kids, look at it like a game of chance. You might be able to work these ropes off and get clear before the crime’s discovered…”

“Or we might not.” Davy glared at her as she got their bonds to her satisfaction.

“Yeah. By my calculations, you’ll have gotten these off but still be here when the cops come, and so probably get blamed.” Her smile was very like her mother’s. “Hey, G-Man, remember how you insisted on sharing in the planning and so I gave you some arrangements to make? The getaway driver?” she added when Georgy looked a little and Benny a lot blank. “It’s all in hand? And you didn’t cheap out on the hiring?”

Muttering “Nuh-huh,” and not meeting his lady’s eyes, Georgy hurried away.

“Goddammit, Benny. I told you to monitor Georgy,” Tessie railed. “And I told you what monitor means.”

With an “Aw, gee, Tessie!” and swinging Curley up onto his shoulders, Benny followed Tessie out, and exclamations and the sounds of equipment and bags being hefted, then four people leaving reached them.

“So they’re gonna get away with it.” Mike worked frantically at the rope around his wrists. “They got a car and driver in place.”

“Not necessarily.” Davy wriggled and shimmied a walkie-talkie loose from his tunic. “We saw a suspicious-looking van on 4th Street, behind the mall, with a driver asleep at the wheel…”

“Not…Old Tom?” Peter guessed.

“Not any longer. You there?” Davy said the last bit into the radio.

“Ho ho ho! And I don’t mean you, Davy!” quipped a familiar voice through the transceiver.

“Micky! As Father Christmas?” Mike felt he could actually see him in the costume. “ _Why?_ ”

“It was just going that way, okay?” Micky’s tone was defensive. “I tuned the transceivers into the crook’s frequency and I’ve been recording it on a tape machine I helped myself to and— Hang on. We got action…”

The three gathered around the walkie-talkie to hear the noise of a van starting, voices asking questions and Micky making nautical “Arrgghhs,” and references to “Landlubbers,” in reply. At one point he even said, “Shiver me tom-toms,” making Mike close his eyes.

There came the squeal of tires. “He’s reversing down 4th Street to Ocean Avenue,” Davy explained.

“To the police station!” Mike exclaimed. “…right?”

“Unless he gets distracted and stops off for a malt at the Barley Moo, yeah,” Davy replied.

But it seemed Micky was sticking to the plan: the screech of brakes and the scrunch of a handbrake was followed by the blare of the van’s horn. Seemed Micky had jammed something in it.

“And the cops’ll find their present! A carful of crooks caught red-handed with stolen goods.” Peter nodded.

A climbing noise was followed by Micky shouting, “Merry Christmas! Santa came early in Santa Monica, that fortunate city full of happy people!”

“Huh?”

“The citty motto. _Populus felix in urbe felica_ ,” Peter replied to Mike, closing _his_ eyes.

“Typical Micky, shouting some wisecracks from the roof of the car before he makes a run for it,” Davy commented, cutting himself off at the skid noise, the thump and the, “ _Oww._ ” “Oh, even more typical Micky—”

“Falling off the roof,” Peter and Mike finished for him. “Hope he’s okay to make a run for it,” Mike said.

“Wait, why is he making a run for it?” Peter queried. “He should stay and explain and maybe get a reward.”

“Not really. Not after what went down earlier with Officer O’Riley. He’s best keeping clear of coppers for a while. Don’t ask.” Davy made a face and went back to working at the ropes around his wrists.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Mike assured him, tugging at his own bonds, and feeling them give. “Thank the Lord!”

“Hallelujah.” Davy held up his own freed wrists.

“Better call Old Man Harrison, show him we’re doing our jobs, before the cops do,” Mike suggested, and Davy hurried off to find a phone. “Here, Peter…” Mike’s fingers were long and pale on Peter’s tanned wrists and hands, and Peter curled strong fingers around Mike’s hand to get them out of the way for Mike to work. It didn’t take long, and Mike was horrified to find himself wishing the knots had been more complicated, had needed more time.

“Let me check your head.” Mike cleared his throat and bent to feel the lump. Peter leaned against him, his forehead on Mike’s chest. If that felt…confusing, then Mike’s fingers rubbing gentle, seeking circles through Peter’s silky hair felt even more so, as in, perplexing with a side of _intimate_.

Peter looked up, into Mike’s eyes. “How am I?” he murmured.

“Fine. You’re fine,” Mike replied, his voice low too. “Fine looking. I mean, you look fine.”

“Thanks.” Peter’s beam was halfway to his sunny one. At least, it wasn’t _fully_ that deeper, mysterious smile of earlier. “You too.”

While that puzzled Mike, it also put a smile on his face while he made short work of the rope tying his feet. “You hungry?” he asked. Most of their adventures finished with them falling on whatever food was around, like a pack of wild animals, even Davy, who’d been wont to lecture them on table manners, at first.

“I could eat.” Peter freed his ankles from the ropes and was quicker than Mike to stand, helping him up, in the way that Mike would normally do for the others. _Point taken_ , Mike thought, unsurprised to receive an answering _Good_ from Peter. Who needed walkie-talkies.

“So, come on.” Mike brushed down his clothes. “Let’s go raid the café.”

“You know, I feel _just_ like a milkshake,” Peter mused.

“What, as in all shook up, or as in talking about them earlier made you want one?”

“Both.” Peter grinned.

“You know what, me too. I’ll make us a couple shakes. And hey, I’ll even let you blow in mine,” Mike offered, just to see Peter’s grin widen and his dimple dance.

“Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse,” Peter murmured, right in Mike’s ear as he brushed past him, making Mike quiver, never mind shake.

Mike stood still and stared after Peter’s departing back. Okay, so things seemed…about to get complicated. Not that they weren’t already, usually, but in a different sort of way. _Or, or could be it’s just the season_ , Mike mused, not so much grasping for a straw as blaming the candy cane. _Yeah. Could be._

He made a mental note to look out for sprigs of mistletoe, here and in the pad, say, but whether to remove them…or stand under them, he didn’t kn-ho ho ho.

What he did know though, if he were honest with himself, was that he was kinda, sorta, _maybe_ , okay with finding out… 


	10. February, 1966

Mike felt it was wrong that Peter should be working on his birthday. Funny: he never thought much about having to work on his—and ever since he’d been a musician, he’d tended to, with the holiday season being good for bands and groups—but that _Peter_ was seemed tough. Maybe it was because Peter was having to work for most of the day and then go on to another job in the evening? Would Peter see this as tough? Would Peter see this as _work_ , was perhaps a better question.

Well, Peter loved playing music, so his gig tonight he wouldn’t. And this, today, in this Bel-Air country club, easily one of if not _the_ snootiest place Mike had even set foot in, well, Peter was making it look like playtime, despite the chill. Mike, in a leisure chair—yeah; the club called ’em that—near the pool—sorry; the _second_ pool—huddled deeper into his sheepskin and tried not to stare too hard at the models being arranged on the diving boards and on the ladder in between the wooden boards.

Micky turned from where he and Davy were standing as close to the shoot as possible without being part of it. At least the pair of ’em were still behind the velvet cord cordoning the action area off, Mike was pleased to note. Micky looked from Mike to the group of models and threw Mike a stare, one Mike could interpret without too much trouble as _Hey, I got dibs on the blondes_. Mike couldn’t recall the concessions Micky had had to make to Davy to ensure that—although Davy would, right down to the dot of the last i and the cross of the last t—but he knew that was the case.

Mike shrugged at Micky in reply. The blondes with an _e_ weren’t holding Mike’s attention as much as the blond in the preppy cotton shorts and leather yacht shoes. Peter looked to the manner born. To the _manor_ born, even, with his hair styled into that side-part rich-kid sweep and colored a spray-in lighter blond to—for God’s sake—match the Labrador dog hired for the shoot.

The outdoor shoot. Of summer stuff. In February, when the wind was tugging at the flag on the pavilion roof and making ripples on the water of the swimming pool. Out of habit, Mike checked to see the kids—no; the other two. Peter was always correcting him—weren’t shivering, although, if they were, he could hardly order them indoors to warm up.

Micky was cold enough to be bundled up in his thick jacket, although too cool to wear here the muffler his kid sister had knitted him last Christmas. Mike saw the tasselled end sticking out of Micky’s pocket. Davy was from a cold climate and Mike had expected him to breeze through California winters in shorts and tees, but he said LA was “different cold. Wet cold” and dived into his thicker clothes and winter coat as soon as the birch tree on the pad sundeck shed its first leaves—his version of the barometer falling.

Did he ever find out that Micky tore off the tree’s leaves and dropped them on the wooden decking, to mess with him? Mike had to grin at how Micky assured Davy that he must feel the cold more than the other three did, being nearer the ground than they were. Mike himself was too tough a Texan to permit himself to shiver, but as a Texan, he could and did, dislike the cold of an LA winter.

“Here.” The voice came with a Styrofoam cup of coffee being deposited on the table next to him, and Mike tore his gaze from the scene being set up, the unlikely ‘casual chat on a series of diving boards and the ladder connecting them’ scenario to take the hot drink gratefully, warming his hands on the cup and his face on the steam.

“Thanks, Meggie.” He gave a grateful nod to the forty-something buyer for the clothing department of the Akron department store on Sunset, who he’d got talking to earlier. “But isn’t craft services just for the models—sorry, the ‘talent’?”

“Oh, we’re not much for ceremony at the Akron,” she assured him, sliding into the chair next to his and checking the pen behind her ear was in place. It was: speared through and holding back a lock of her graying frizzy red hair. “Even when the boss gets the idea to suddenly produce a fashion catalog of the season’s new styles.”

“Yeah… _season’s?_ ” Mike queried, looking at the chicks in floaty thigh-skimming, thin-strap dresses and clinging bathing costumes. “You mean summer, right?”

She gave a rusty-sounding laugh that was more like a cough. “There’s really only two seasons in fashion. January through June is spring and summer, and July through December is fall. Don’t even try to make sense of it. I still can’t.”

“Huh.” Mike sipped and considered. “And I thought California’s two seasons were a long dry summer and a shorter rainy winter.”

Meggie gave a short chuckle, her head already buried in her binder, with all its tabs, and her clipboard, with all its pages. Both stationery items had colored pencils attached on stretchy wires, and she had two pens in one hand, a blue and a red. She was in charge of a lot of the organization, including letting Peter bring three guests along, Davy and Micky insisting on being close to models and Mike…coming along too. Just because.

Oh, because he was driving Peter to his second job of the day, later in the evening. Thinking of Peter getting work because of his contacts prompted him to say, “It’s good your boss thought of Peter for this job.” The guy had given Peter seasonal modelling work inside the store too, a few times last year.

“Hmm?”

“Peter’s family friend, from back in Connecticut.” Mike gestured at Peter, now holding a stick out to make the dog jump up for the camera, or more exactly, the pleading photographer. It wasn’t and wouldn’t. Mike caught Peter saying something about it must be his fault; he was used to boxers, not Labs.

“Oh! Yeah, it’s because he’s from Connecticut he _got_ this job,” Meggie agreed. “All the people hired today are from the north.”

“So…they don’t shiver in the cold!” Mike got it, grinning. He looked around at someone calling out that this was a break. One wasn’t scheduled, but a guy whose jacket said ANIMAL TRAINER was beckoned forward from behind the cordon to work with the reluctant dog. Maybe it was cold, too? Mike turned a blind eye to Micky slipping through in the guy’s wake, the back of his jacket bearing that useful, all-purpose and yet meaningless word ASSISTANT.

Meggie finished her coffee in a gulp, swung to her feet and left with a wry half-smile, toting her binder and board, and Mike stood too, waving to Peter. “You okay?” he called, frowning as Peter looked a little pinched and stiff under the glowing golden tan a makeup girl had brushed on him. Peter lived in shorts and T-shirts—or no shirts—almost year-round, but was usually on the move, playing sports or music, keeping exercised and warm, not standing around motionless. Mike whipped his sheepskin off and slipped it onto Peter, who looked a little startled.

“Thanks. Is that for me too?” Peter took up the coffee and his eyes opened wide at the sweetness of the sugar and the full cream. “Umm. Nice. Oh, but aren’t you concerned I’ll get a swollen head with this _staah_ treatment?”

“What, and start demanding your own dressing room wherever we play a gig?” Mike had to grin. Here, the models had used the changing rooms, the entire poolside being hired for the shoot. “And in the pad, one with your name on the door and everything?”

“Picked out in stick-on gold stars.” Peter nodded. He swung his arms and stamped his feet, lifting his legs high. He hadn’t buttoned the coat and it fell open, showing his Bermuda shorts and pastel-colored shirt

“Do you get to keep the clothes?” Mike asked.

“Why, you like them?” Peter assumed a hands-on-hips pose, the coat loose down his back, its sides a frame for his body.

“Oh, not so much that as I reckon we got enough stuff from the store, you know? Like, enough home furnishings in the den—enough tables and coffee tables and chairs and armchairs and knickknacks…” Peter tended to come home with items from the eclectic or ‘serendipity’ store instead of money in payment for his work.

“Hey, most of that was Micky, when he was briefly employed in home furnishings,” Peter pointed out. “ _Very_ briefly…”

“Don’t remind me.” Mike closed his eyes.

Peter’s, “And curios?” had him opening them.

“What’s that now?”

“So we’re fine for knickknacks you say, but what about curios?” Peter asked.

“I don’t—”

“Or rarities? Or bric-a-brac?”

“Oh, _I_ get it.” Or rather, Mike got _Peter_ , in a way most people, even Davy and Micky still, sometimes, didn’t. “Wise guy, huh? Yeah, we got enough jumble, and trinkets, and clutter. Now, if you got sensible stuff, like cookware, or dining ware…”

“Then we’d have to get food to put in it and on it.” Peter passed him the coffee to finish, the two of them in sync with that just as they were with their riffing, whether that was wordplay, like here, or jamming music chords or phrases when Mike was song writing. Mike completed the back and forth by passing Peter the paper napkin from under the coffee cup to dab at his lips with.

“Careful of your makeup there,” he advised. “Hey, they covered up your freckles!”

“Umm, and they painted freckles on another guy who doesn’t have any!” Peter laughed.

“That’s showbiz,” they said together. It was one of Micky’s catchphrases originally, that they’d all started using. Mike missed Peter’s freckles. “They kinda filled your dimple in too,” he observed. “Oh, and powdered over your mole. Huh.”

Catching up with what he’d said, Mike coughed and stuck his hands in his pockets, moving his gaze to the small group of chicks who’d been modelling the one-pieces and who were now wrapped in plaid blankets and clutching hot water bottles. Better to get caught staring at them than at Peter, and saying stuff that implied he knew Peter’s every feature, spent time cataloging them.

Huh. Catalog. Reason they were here. Couldn’t get away from that notion today. Despite his best efforts, he caught Peter’s eye…and saw the speculative light in it, a complement to the slight twist to his brows. Puzzled at that, and the, well, _zing_ , it sent through Mike, he wanted to know what was on Peter’s mind. He opened his mouth to ask—

“Oh, Petey!” called out the barber, no; _hair stylist_ , hurrying over.

 _“Petey?”_ Mike mouthed.

Peter shrugged. “Yes, Johnny?” he called.

“Time for me to touch you up!” Johnny trilled.

“Don’t,” Peter begged Mike, who mimed zipping his lips.

“I’m not Mick,” he reminded Peter.

“I know, or you’d be over there, offering free full-body hugs to chicks in halter tops and shorts, to warm them up,” Peter replied.

“Yeah.” Mike had to acknowledge the truth of that. “Funny—it’s your birthday, and he gets all the treats.” Well, it _was_ why Micky had wanted to come.

Reaching them, Johnny swung his case down on the table and at the same time steered Peter into a chair with his other hand. For a small, slim guy, he was co-ordinated and determined. “Butch you up, I should say,” he corrected himself, looking at Mike from the corners of his eyes. “Hi again.”

“Er, yeah, hi,” Mike replied.

“Butch wax.”

“Huh?” Mike wasn’t sure he’d heard Peter correctly.

“Butch wax,” Peter repeated, indicating the pot of hair pomade Johnny was rubbing on his fingertips. “For hair control.”

“For managing one’s Harvard Clip.” The guy scrunched his hand around Peter’s sculpted bangs then relaxed his fingers. “You know, the ‘short on the sides, long enough to side part on the top front of the head’ style. Or would be, if Petey had let me get my clippers to it and made a matching set of you all…”

The other guys modelling had that sort of thick-on-top buzz cut, the clean-cut-kid version of the high-and-tight Mike had detested having to get in the air force and that he’d grown out as soon as he could. He hadn’t realized this stylist had cut them all and a chill that had nothing to do with the cold of the day shivered down his spine at the thought of Peter losing his blond mop and bangs.

“I wouldn’t.” Peter nudged Mike’s foot.

“Uh-huh, no Harvard Clip or Princeton Rowing-Crew-Cut for this one.” Johnny stepped back. “But I think we did okay with this Dartmouth Drape…”

“It looks fine.” Mike was quick to pick up his cue. He meant it, too. The extra-blondness of it, beating out Peter’s reddish tint, wouldn’t last.

“Never expected I’d come even this close to being Ivy League.” Peter nodded thanks at Johnny and passed him his hand mirror back. “I have to tell Father. Should horrify him nicely.”

“Huh?” Mike asked, but Peter shook his head.

“Nothing.”

Nothing…as in he’d gotten a birthday card from his parents, but no present nothing? As in, with Peter out all day, he couldn’t take a phone call and hear their birthday wishes nothing? Mike had wondered…

“It’s complicated,” Peter added, perhaps at Mike’s furrowed brow and lips opening to ask a question. “He’s complicated. They’re complicated.”

Well, he was hardly simple. The complicated apple didn’t fall far from the complicated tree.

“This color…” Peter’s question to Johnny had _change the subject_ ringing right through it as he stroked his stiffened bangs.

“Will wash out,” the stylist assured him.

“Well, I’ll leave it in for this evening and tomorrow.”

“Need to look smart?” Johnny packed his tools away.

“And…white,” Peter muttered.

“Oh.” Johnny leaned in a little. “A little bird told me a secret about you…”

“Oh yes?” Peter leaned in too.

“That it’s a special day.” Johnny smiled and Mike, who’d taken a step forward, relaxed. A little.

Peter nodded, flashing Johnny a smile.

“And I shouldn’t say but…well, another little bird—”

Loud, apposite screeching and squawking made him break off.

“One of those birds?” Mike inquired, turning to see what all the commotion was. Brightly colored wings were flapping and agitated chirps rent the air over by the diving boards.

“Oh, Micky’s got the parrots riled up!” Peter exclaimed. “And Chad, Brad, and I were supposed to pose with them on our shoulders.”

“Because…that’s what happens during summers at the Hamptons?” Mike guessed

“No.” Peter tutted. “On the Vineyard.”

“ _Really?_ ” Mike had to ask.

“No idea. Sorry.” Peter’s grin was almost as cheeky as Davy’s.

“Well, you two aren’t that far off—this shoot is kind of Take Ivy at Hyannis Point.”

Mike had no idea what Johnny was saying, or why he was pointing to the bright yellow ball being thrown into the pool. “Water polo?” he guessed.

“With parrots!” Micky shouted over to them. “How cool is that?”

“Very cool…in there.” Mike started into the water. “Take care, all right?” He whipped around but couldn’t catch Micky imitating him as a doddery old lady wrapping them in cotton wool. But if he did…that nutjob’d be needing the cotton wool, to pad his drum stool when Mike finished dishing out a whoppin’.

“Oh, we’re not playing an actual game.” Peter waved to someone beckoning him from the changing room. “We’re just in the pool in the background while the chicks stand on the edge in their cocktail dresses.”

“And _that’s_ what happens on Martha Vineyard?” Mike stumbled a little when Peter pulled off his coat and held it up, tuning his forefinger in a circle to indicate Mike should turn around for Peter to help him into the coat. He smoothed the sheepskin over Mike’s shoulders, and Mike made himself stand impassive.

The coat still carried Peter’s warmth and Mike would bet if he buried his face inside the lapels, he’d catch Peter’s scent. Funny, the coat was still warm and warm in itself, but the air seemed colder as Peter walked away.

“it’s the department manager’s idea.” Johnny’s voice almost startled Mike. He’d forgotten anyone else was around. “The concept.”

He pulled himself together. “Oh yeah? The guy Peter knows from home? He seems…” He couldn’t think of the right word then, but decided on _kind_ , later, just as the hair guy’s words made sense, later, when Mr. Stewart arrived with a surprise cake for Peter and all the people who’d worked with him at the Akron or knew him started singing _Happy Birthday_. It only took seconds for everyone else to join in and clap for him and wish him well, give him hugs and kisses.

“And because models, even guy ones, don’t eat, we got the leftovers!” Micky, in the back of the Monkeemobile with Davy as they left the Bel-Air country club, gloated. He lifted the lid of the pink paperboard box again. The cake, once a satisfyingly large rectangle bearing the word _PETER!_ in white writing on its blue frosting was now a still-fat square saying _PET_.

Mike, driving and trying not to feel too envious of the big verdant estates he could see stretching back from gates on both sides of the road, caught Micky’s eye in the driving mirror as he swung down Sunset. “What do I say about eating in the Monkeemobile?” he asked.

“Don’t let Mike catch you? Oh wait, that’s what _Peter_ says.” Micky slapped his forehead.

“Look at you, like a pig in clover. Cake in your hand and ogling birds all day. It was supposed to be Peter’s birthday, not your ‘died and gone to heaven’ day.” Davy dug an elbow into Micky’s side.

“I said that. Well, not as graphically…” Mike admitted.

“I gotta way with words. And now I gotta go away. Well, for a while.” Davy checked his reflection as Mike turned just into Hilldale, where it was still possible to find parking, and pulled over for him to exit. “Gotta date.”

“ _Really?_ ” they chorused in mock-surprise.

“Valentine’s is tomorrow,” Micky added.

“I know. This is a warm-up. Oh, break a leg for later.”

“Who, Peter or Mike?” Micky queried. “They both got big nights planned.”

“Yeah…”

Mike tried to interpret the look passing between Davy and Peter, turned around from the shotgun seat, but couldn’t, and with a, “Don’t wait up!” Davy was gone back the way they’d come, into the stream of Sunset Strip’s Friday evening pedestrians.

“Micky, this is right for you here, isn’t it?” Mike asked him.

Micky, now leaning out of the back to eat so he wasn’t technically _inside_ the car, nodded. Good. They weren’t too far from Peter’s destination too, but Mike would deliver him to the door and very soon, so this had better not take too long. Well, if it did, he’d turf Micky out to wait on the curb. He had his cake for company.

“Back here again.” Peter squinted down the road back onto the Strip. True, things seemed to be moving for them more and more from Beechwood and even Santa Monica to this part of West Hollywood. As they should.

“Told you we should’ve taken the place we looked at along here,” came thickly from the back.

“We shouldn’t have.” Mike and Peter said together. “Mick, what is it you’re doing tonight? I thought the thing was tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it is. Coco’s collecting me today to go over the dos and don’t of chaperoning her tomorrow. You know, so _we_ agree before we go see Mom for _her_ rules.”

“I can tell you a few don’ts,” Mike replied. “One: don’t wear a dress and call yourself Mrs. Arcadian. “Two—”

“Ha-ha.” Micky sat forward and tried to flick Mike’s ear. Mike saw him coming in the driver’s mirror and dodged.

“I think it’s nice of you to give up your evening tomorrow, Micky.” Peter gave him a sunny smile.

“It’s a double date with Coco’s boyfriend’s sister,” he admitted.

“That’ll end well.” Mike wondered if he should go over a few rules of his own, just in case Micky had—

“No time! There she is!” Micky pointed at the small car coming down the road.

Mike stared. “Isn’t that your old Bug? That you gave in part exchange for the Monkeemobile?”

“Yeah. She bought it. It’s a long story. “Don’t ask,” Micky begged, scrambling out and slamming his door behind him.

“Won’t,” Mike replied. _Wouldn’t dare._

“Have fun, you two!” Micky leaned in through the window. “Happy birthday again, Peter. And yeah, break a leg. Or two—you’re playing with different groups, right?”

“Right. Thanks.” Peter reached out to stroke his palm along Micky’s cheek in goodbye, a habit he had, and Mike leaned over Peter to wipe Micky’s mouth free of the blue frosting that lingered on his lips.

“ _Mike!_ ” Micky whined, jumping at the blare of a horn and hitting his head on the Monkeemobile ceiling. “ _Coco!_ ” he yelled, turning to shake a fist at her before dodging the oncoming traffic and trotting over to her.

Mike waited until Micky, was inside the small car—though barely, before his sister bore him away—before driving them back onto the Strip. “We in good time for you?” he asked, pulling out into the traffic.

“Fine. And Coleman’s is just along here, so we’re really early for you.” Peter went to take Mike’s wrist where it lay on the wheel and lift it, but Mike pulled away before Peter’s fingers closed around it. He raised an eyebrow at Peter’s expression. “Oh!” Peter was now able to see the time on his own, brand-new watch. He had to get used to it. “Thanks again for this. It’s really nice of you.”

 _Safer of me_ , Mike didn’t say. As much as he enjoyed— _had_ enjoyed—the feel of Peter’s strong, supple fingers closing around his wrist whenever Peter needed to turn it and raise it to his eyes to know the time, it had been time—no pun intended—to put a stop to that thrill radiating out from the spots Peter touched to ripple down his spine and pool. Because where that feeling pooled…was getting harder— _definitely_ no pun intended there; Mike fought not to wriggle in his seat—to conceal. And deal with.

“That’s okay. I got that club to check out farther down.” Mike indicated. “And with Coleman’s being a bar and a supper club, I can always hang out at the bar section while I’m waiting, right?”

 _While I’m waiting for Claire._ His date for tonight’s pre-Valentine Night, part of Romance Weekend at Coleman’s Bar and Grill & Jazz Supper Club Lounge, to give the venue its full title. The place’s inconsistently written and constantly added to, rather than changed, name wasn’t so much a sign of the times as the owner’s attempt to keep up with the times without losing whatever of the place’s original patrons or cachet was left. All the handful of similar places that were left on the Strip, and even on Sunset, were much the same, Mike guessed.

The club he was on his way to, having stationed the Pontiac in the Coleman’s lot, had risen from the ashes of a Golden Age of Hollywood café-brasserie. It had been famous for its roast beef sandwiches and the fact that a star of the silver screen had met the waitress there who he declared the love of his life and immediately proposed to…not seeing that his wife was in the high-back booth behind his…with the studio head.

Yeah, Rafferty’s, latterly and sniffily known as Riff-Raff-erty’s, was now The Trip Off The Strip, and where a contact of Micky’s from the days of his former band now worked as one of the managers, and who Mike hoped they could talk into offering them a house band slot or at least a couple of gigs.

But his mind wasn’t on that as much as it was on Claire, the bank teller in the National North American Bank in Mid-City Santa Monica he’d met two weeks ago when he’d gone in to pay their rent—arrears—directly into Babbitt’s account so he didn’t have to see him. He’d gone to the creep’s branch and the cashier chick had rolled her eyes at the name on the account Mike was depositing cash into and asked if he was a tenant of Babbitt’s. “Oh, you poor thing,” she’d said, her face screwed up in sympathy, and given him a mint, even though they were for corporate clients, and a pen and pencil set, even though they were for new clients, and a calendar, just because.

They’d chatted for so long that the customer behind Mike had gone from shuffling to coughing to reaching over Mike’s shoulder to knock on the counter, at which Claire had slammed the pyramid-shaped POSITION CLOSED sign down and she and Mike had gone outside for a coffee.

She was pretty, with her thick, shining reddish-blonde hair and brown eyes, and lively, telling him how when she’d worked in a smaller branch with higher counters and service windows, they’d avoided mean customers by slapping down a CLOSED – NEXT TELLER PLEASE sign and scurrying to hide behind the next teller’s chair, then the next when that teller followed suit, until the last poor teller left working because she hadn’t been able to close up in time had to serve the detested customer, with the other four cashiers crouched down by her feet.

“Like playing hide and seek, or sardines!” Mike had commented.

“We called it ‘rabbit’” Claire had replied, and Mike tried not to think that her slightly protruding eyes were, well.

They’d had lunch together after that—he’d shared her homemade sandwiches and thermos of soup in the small park near her work. She didn’t like to spend much: she was saving for a deposit for a mortgage on her own place. In return, he’d collected her on his bike to take her to lunch at the pad, and also to watch the last bit of their rehearsal.

She’d sat on the edge of her seat, her eyes bulging ever so slightly, swinging her head from one of them to another as if trying to catch them playing, like she was watching a play and focusing on each speaker. Then it was lunch, and Peter had, Mike discovered, swapped days with Davy, and made a strange soup of hot water, olive oil and cilantro, with each bowl served with a thick slice of bread and a poached egg in.

“What do you think?” Mike had asked after, hoping she wouldn’t say slimy. Or runny.

“I think…I’m going to save even harder for a mortgage for my own place,” she’d replied.

Mike still didn’t know if she’d been joking or not.

His business, such as it was, concluded with Micky’s contact, Rob, who was still smarting after some stunt Micky had pulled that had singed Rob’s eyebrows off—and that Micky hadn’t mentioned—Mike retraced his steps to his destination, wriggled into his suit in the back of the Monkeemobile and went in.

He felt slightly apprehensive as his table was comped. Peter had a perk of the job, something complicated, very Peter-esque in that he wasn’t getting actual money for the evening but helping out other musicians, who’d all clubbed together and given him their meal allowance, which he’d passed on to Mike. And Claire. Who should be happy at him saving money like this.

The place was old-fashioned, but classy more than dated, smelling of flowers or a floral scent rather than the dusty, aged-wood smell Mike had half-expected from the wood-panelled walls and floor and huge potted plants. It was open from cocktail hour to after-dinner, when it promised nightclub-style entertainment and Mike suddenly recalled the ‘food, drink, music, and dancing’ slogan of a dinner-dance place back home, somewhere that had seemed unimaginable luxury and sophistication when he was a kid. Needless to say, he’d never been inside the place. Probably never would.

Here, he made for the long, high bar counter on the left that was nearest to the door, wondering if there was any difference between this one and the matching bar against the place’s right-side wall. Neither, or the cub itself, looked over-formal or snooty. He hopped up on a stool to have a beer while he took in the place.? The dance floor was small—every place like this he’d ever been in had a smaller than expected dance area—and the stage, with shiny silver drapes at the back, was hardly large, but big enough for the Sycamore Trio or Four or however many there were, including Peter.

For some reason, he hadn’t expected Peter to be playing this early, but he was. Or maybe he was shadowing the real bass player, there with him? Jazz was far from being Mike’s bag, but this was light and cool, relaxed, not smoky and sexy. Oh, the group playing later would probably have an edgier vibe, like that. Peter would be playing with them, too. He liked playing with both, but with the jazz cats, as he learned more, he said.

Mike tried not to stare at the stage, and took in more details of the place instead. Would this Valentine romance weekend, or whatever they were calling it, bring in extra custom? Maybe. Place was half-full already, couples all dressed up at the tables, nodding along to the music. Peter saw him and smiled. He was dressed up too, in his tux, and looked extra…whatever it was he looked, with his hair all styled like that. And he was good. Mike could really hear the bass in a way he couldn’t when they played, or even in the music they listened to in clubs or gigs. Peter was playing off against the other bassist, playing the same bassline and diverging from it, swinging and grooving. It sounded big. Fat, even. Mike spectating as well as listening meant he could appreciate Peter in a way he normally couldn’t, too. He could _see_ what he looked like playing, and in a tux—

“Sir? Sir? Your table?”

Oh, right. The waiter. He’d almost forgotten he was waiting for someone. For Claire. “My date’ll be here any minute,” he assured the waiter, following him. The waiter shot him a wink.

The club’s small round tables filled the space between the two bars, and were pretty, with their long tablecloths and elegant lamps. Some had phones, and Mike wanted to ask why, and they all had pretty little flowers in slim vases. His table wasn’t one of the privileged ones around the edge of the dance floor, of course, but it wasn’t squashed against the back walls. “Say, the group are good, right?” Mike said, never missing a chance to praise musicians.

“Their first time here. Seem to be popular, yes.”

Which…was more than Mike was. The chair opposite his remained empty until the music on stage switched to piano and upright bass and Peter came over, leaving the other musicians to sit on high stools, dark shapes against the silver of the back curtain, nodding along and snapping their fingers.

“Hey,” Mike greeted him.

“Hey…”

“Sit a while.” Mike gestured across the table.

As soon as Peter did, the waiter deposited a circular tray between them, one he spun.

“Oh, a rotating tray.” Mike nodded as if this was what he’d expected. He had no idea what to expect.

“Also called a serviette, or butler’s assistant.” Peter inspected the contents. Seemed to be salad stuff or relishes.

“Or a Lazy Susan.” Mike’s mom had one. “Just don’t see how this is romantic.”

“Look around.”

Mike took Peter’s advice and did: couples were dipping the crackers or cut-up vegetables in the green or white relishes in the middle of the platter and feeding each other.

“And it’s got all my favorites.”

“So eat,” Mike invited. “Unless it’s too difficult to play after.” He deserved the arched-eyebrow look Peter gave him—they were all adept at eating when and where they could. Peter selected what looked like a long toothpick holding different colored fat round beads and dunked it into some oily stuff.

“No Callie?” he asked.

“Claire.” Peter never remembered her name. “I’ll call her. Hey, good solos. Or solos à deux?”

“Yeah.” Peter pulled some of the squishy bead things from the skewer with his lips. “Jools is training me. I haven’t played upright bass – double bass – in a while and I’ll be playing it after this break.”

Mike selected a potato chip. Sucking dip off the elongated food things seemed— “Bet it’s good not to play rock and roll for a change?” he asked.

“Different.” Peter selected a baby carrot, and crunched it. Thankfully. “I like the interplay of harmonies, and you know how much I enjoy modal music.” At Mike’s usual lost expression he explained the chordal versus modal difference again, but Mike still shrugged. “You’ll know it when you hear it,” Peter assured him.

Mike wasn’t so sure. “Every time I think I’ve got it, I’m more confused,” he admitted. “Like now with the piano—I thought the left hand repeated a phrase throughout a song?”

“Yes, in boogie-woogie.” Peter skewered a selection of cut-up squares of cheese and passed the cheese-loaded toothpick thing to Mike. “But the manager here said that was a bit too ‘Harlem’ for him.” He rolled his eyes and Mike replied with a closed-eyed head shake. “So it’s all relaxed tempo and light tone. What the Judge is doing with his left hand is really a melodic counterline that sounds like the walking bassline Jools is playing, see?”

Even if Mike didn’t. Peter’s expertise and enthusiasm was infectious. Peter laughed. “They’re calling me Illya.”

“As in the Russian spy character? David McCallum?” Mike laughed too, seeing a slight resemblance. “Well, ya do stand out a little.”

“Never mind Micky, I feel like _their_ chaperone. Or sponsor.”

The management had wanted a less ‘black’ act, and gotten it in the shape of Peter being part of it. This act and the R&B group later.

“I’d better go.” Peter cleaned his fingers with the napkin and stood.

“And I’d better call Claire.” Although he’d been happy sitting with Peter…especially when he asked for a phone, was given one and got Claire’s roommate, who said Claire was out with friends and had left a message that Mike could go f— Well, Bernice wasn’t going to repeat the word in case they got their phone line canceled, but Mike understood, right?

“I got the gist, yeah,” Mike replied, confused. Claire must have heard the meal was free and thought— But no; she liked that kind of thing, didn’t she? Maybe she’d heard he flirted with Bea in the Santa Monica mall? Like last week, when they’d played the Hive and he’d invited her? But he and Claire weren’t exclusive by any means, and he wasn’t into Bea. It was just to stop— _Stop thinking like that._ Bewildered, Mike sat where he was while the Sycamores played a few more songs, Peter on double bass this time.

The room cheered as three glamorous ladies took the stage. Blossom, backed by a pick-up band as usual, since none of them played guitar or drums. Here, Peter was back on bass. Mike hardly noticed a waitress set prime rib, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn in front of him, but snapped to when she deposited a plate of chicken down too, opposite him. “Oh, ma’am, could I trouble you to put that in a Micky bag? Sorry. Force of habit. I mean a doggy bag,” he asked.

“Aww.” The girl took the plate up again. “I bet Micky’s a cutie, huh? All fuzzy and furry?”

“Well, he’s fuzzy.” Mike pictured those curls of his, a mess of tangles, when Micky got up. “Not so furry.” Although his chest hair was coming in at last.

“Is he clever? He do little tricks?”

“He’s…clever.” Mike gave a reluctant nod. “More kinda cunning, you know? He did go through a phase of doing tricks, yep.” A phase the other three were glad to see the back of. “He’s tricky,” Mike concluded.

With a “huh,” the waitress bore the chicken off.

The music on stage was lively, catchy, with handclaps that the customers joined in and took over. The three similarly dressed chicks strode the stage, small as it was, as if singing to their musicians. They had a kind of mock-competitive call and response going on between Beckie on lead vocals and the others on chorus, with Beckie flirting with the guitarist and Tisha and Leona with the bassist. With Peter. 

Peter played upright bass for a couple of songs, pizzicato, then switched back to bass. The affection between him and the chicks was palpable. Mike had noticed it—boy; had he—on the semi-tour they’d all been on in December and had wanted to ask then. But it didn’t seem serious? Or at least, as in not going anywhere? Peter didn’t behave around them like he had toward Valerie, for instance. Mike searched his memories and thoughts for more information, more clues. He must have been staring—Peter raised his head from his usual bent over his instrument hunch and looked right at him. He didn’t smile, like he did when he caught Mike’s eye unexpectedly, just looked back. Mike…looked away.

Beckie switched to piano—oh yeah, Mike recalled she could play. Not a patch on Peter though—for a rawer, more bluesy song the manager would probably think too ‘Deep South’, the other girls providing the vocalized chorus. Mike’s dessert arrived, and so did Peter.

“Leona said she can spare me for a couple of songs.” He looked from the plates to Mike. “Two desserts and…”

“A no-show,” Mike confessed.

Peter sat, bumping the table and making the upright-arch-shaped cake, sliced from a huge edifice like a sandcastle, shake, and the heart-shaped pink gelatine pudding with tiny hearts piped on in cream wobble.

“I guess something happened,” Mike shrugged.

“Birds, man. Can’t live with ’em…” Peter’s Davy voice was good. He was a good mimic. As good as Micky in some ways. “What’s this?”

“Tunnel of Love cake”—Mike poked at the gooey chocolate sauce oozing from the chocolate structure—“and that’s Queen of Hearts pudding. Hey!” He snatched a spoon to fend off Peter’s helping itself to the hot fudge sauce. “Just for that, you get the chick’s dessert.” He pushed the wobbling bright pink confection toward Peter.

“You’re…giving me your heart?” That note in Peter’s voice must have been due to the mouthful of gelatine and cream he’d taken.

“’s all yours.” Mike grabbed for the last of his wine to swallow and clear his throat. He’d crammed too much chocolate stuff in and it was rich. He laughed. “Leaving nothing sweet for the Micky bag.”

“He’s sweet enough.” Peter pointed behind him and of course Mike turned, to see nothing—over his shoulder—but whirled back in time to see Peter scooping up a spoonful of chocolate and fudge.

“Paying a visit to my Tunnel of Love, there, shotgun?” Mike asked, and Peter fought not to laugh, not wanting to spray fudge through his teeth, and half-choked instead. “Can’t take you anywhere,” Mike said.

Things were easy with Peter. Mike would have said _relaxed_ , and they were…except for a tickle. No, trickle? A whisper, maybe? A buzz, was the closest Mike could get to it. A hum of awareness. Like how they held eye contact just a beat too long, or how Mike’s skin tingled when their hands brushed. Why did their hands even brush, anyway? He stretched out his legs and his foot clipped Peter’s ankle. Peter didn’t flinch and didn’t move away, and that closeness brought an extra warmth, an added sparkle. And all that didn’t detract from the ease, the complicity. No, it _enhanced_ it. Made it _glimmer_. Mike…should, well, say something. Shouldn’t he?

Mike sat forward, at the same time as the flower girl stopped by their table with her basket of roses and held one out to Peter.

“Thanks!” Peter took it with a sunny beam, one that encompassed the manager, Mike learned the old guy was, stopping by to wish him happy birthday. Blossom started singing it from the stage, the spotlight swung onto Peter, and the club’s other patrons joined in. Smiling, Peter slotted the rose into his lapel.

***

“Oh, and we also got a sort of fondue, strawberries and little squares of cake to dip into—”

“ _Melted chocolate?_ ” breathed Micky, who’d been hanging onto every word.

Mike shook his head. “Bubbling apricot brandy.”

“That is stone-cold groovy.” Micky licked his lips. “And that was really the best date you’ve ever been on?”

“I chose truth,” Mike reminded Micky. “And I play by the rules.” Even of a stupid game they were playing one November evening later in the same year, too broke to go out and nothing on TV. “Shuffle.”

Micky shuffled the four identical stones from the beach around and Mike chose one to turn over, to reveal a painted letter _D_. “Davy?”

Sighing, Davy chose one of the remaining three stones and flipped it over to find the letter _P_.

“Truth,” Peter chose.

“Okay…” Davy, who was supposed to be on a date but wasn’t and had been taking his mood out on the rest of them, suddenly sat forward, a glint in his eye.

“Dare. I choose dare,” Peter said quickly.

“Too late. Peter, tell Mike how come you were on that date.”

“He wasn’t really. Just I got ditched.” Mike thought that had been clear, but…

“You didn’t, actually. You got cancelled. Well, in actual fact, _you_ cancelled”

“I did what now?”

“But not exactly you.”

Maybe it was a full English moon, because the l’il biscuit, after an evening of being pissy, was now making no sense. So why was Peter looking like—

“I did it, okay? I called her up pretending to be you and cancelled at the very last minute, the reason she was so mad.” Peter stared at his toes.

“ _Shotgun?_ ” Mike must have misheard. Misunderstood. Because Peter prided himself on his integrity and… Peter lifted his head to look at him, the way he had in their joint counselling session that had stirred a lot of things to the surface, and like then, Mike _saw_. Saw how Peter’s emotions had boiled and bubbled away in him, _eaten_ away at him, had gotten him mixed up and lost and unbalanced until he didn’t recognize himself.

“Michael?” Peter whispered.

“Gimme a minute. I don’t know what to think.” That much was true. He knew how he should be reacting, processing, making it okay for Peter to do so, but he had enough beer in him to continue, “In a story, it’d be one of those ‘what if’ moments. What if we’d gone on the date. Got on well. Got serious. Got… Davy, I sure wish you’d picked a different topic.”

Davy had the grace to look ashamed.

“You want serious? I’ll show you serious.” Micky dashed into the No-Room and returned with something in his hand. “Here.”

Still in something like shock, Mike took it. It was a narrow rectangular bookmark, laminated card with a pink satin ribbon on the back. He thought he recalled Peter using it. He looked harder and saw it had a pressed rose in the middle, with a tiny leaf above and below it. Oh. “You made it?” he asked Peter, tracing the small dried rose with his forefinger and remembering the original Peter had worn in his lapel…

“At the Skills Exchange Workshop,” Peter answered, his voice small. “It’s the reason I joined.”

“Peter…” It must have been so tough for him, with feelings he’d never had before confusing him, leaving him lost and not liking himself very much. There was only one thing to say, one way to respond. “ _I love you_ ,” Mike mouthed at him, letting his feelings, his love shine through like a beacon, to guide Peter home. And the best, the only response to that was when Peter’s mouth turned up in a smile, small at first, but one that came to light up his whole face, then radiate from him to fill any space between them. 

“Well, I guess I should ask, is there anything else you wanna tell me?” Mike queried, squeezing his hand.

“Well, I sort of…had my bunny all-in-one with me in case we got it on and spent the night somewhere,” Peter mumbled.

“What? You were gonna put out on the first _date_?” Micky was scandalized.

“And how.” Peter’s voice was a deep baritone rumble now.

 _Valentine date…romantic dinner…roses… night away…new improved bunny all-in-one…_ The thoughts, the images, beat at Mike.

“Mike’s quiet. Is he mad?” whispered Micky.

“Nah, mate. That’s his thinking face,” Davy told him.

“Not so much thinking as planning,” Mike corrected. Or rather, _plotting_. For next Valentine Day, their first...…


	11. August, 1966 part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be one chapter, but the smutty finale went on too long. (That's not what he said...)  
> Thanks to 70mtt for the beach ideas and Davy's best pun!

Even before Mike left his bedroom early that late August morning, he knew he was going to regret it. He didn’t want to so much as unlock the bedroom door, never mind step over the threshold onto the upstairs landing, but he had to. No choice. Not when he could smell fire, or burning, or—

“ _Cooking?_ ” He closed the door behind him as softly as silently as he could, wishing he was still on the other side of it. He clung to the doorknob at his back as if that would make a difference. Nope. It didn’t. Didn’t make the chaos downstairs, the other two at its helm, vanish. “Again? And both of you this time?” At the same time. Stinking the pad out double. “Guys, wasn’t yesterday bad enough?”

“I think you mean _good_ enough.” Davy stopped shaking the fryer and reached to shake the housekeeping jar instead, making its extra coins jingle among the— _wow_ —bills.

“And today will be better…enough.” Micky pushed into the slight space Davy had made by moving before Davy could occupy it again. Now placed more front and center to the stove, he stirred his pan harder.

“Where you going?” Davy demanded as Mike moved as well.

“Back to bed to start again,” Mike admitted. “It might things make more sense.”

“Oh, it won’t.” Micky delivered his rebuttal in a world-weary _believe me, I’ve tried_ tone.

“No, it won’t.” Mike was a realist, one who held on to the bannister as he shuffled his early-morning-slow way down the helter-skelter stairs. He risked a peep at the stove, trying to correlate the sizzles and sputters coming from it with the smells of frying and cooking stinking out the place. Unable to see through the two percussionists’ bodies, he took a cautious sniff, wrinkling his nose at the reek of the beef dripping Davy was using for frying, the same as yesterday, and furrowing his brow at the new notes Micky was adding, with _his_ cooking. Actual beef? And…cayenne pepper?

No, it won’t,” Mike repeated, reluctantly reaching the bottom of the stairs. “So, couldya explain it to me like I’m in kindergarten? Mick, no, please—” He held up a hand at Micky suddenly looking like a middle-aged school ma’am, cane in one hand and dunce’s cap in the other. “And not until I’ve had coffee. If I could get to the stove…”

“I thought ahead. Made it in advance.” Micky shot him a proud-of-himself smile over his shoulder, sticking out his chin—more—at the coffeepot on the counter.

In advance…a while ago. Meaning it was now barely lukewarm, Mike discovered. Picking his battles, like Peter always advised him to, Mike forced his shoulders into a nonchalant shrug, poured himself a cup and took a seat at the table. Thinking of Peter—okay; when wasn’t he?—just as Micky and Davy started squabbling over something reminded him.

“Hey, guys, keep the noise down. Peter’s sleeping in. He’s tired.”

“ _Mike!_ ” Micky sounded scandalized. “Some things are better kept to yourself.”

“If he did that, Peter wouldn’t be so tired,” Davy quipped, holding up a palm for Micky to slap, then cursing as the wooden spoon Micky still held in that hand left a trail of splatters on Davy’s, and his shirt.

“You know how you two are always saying you think you’re just like the Smothers Brothers? Well, you’re even better. You’re like the Marx Brothers,” Mike commented. “And Peter’s tired from working hard. At his job.” He glared at Micky, who’d opened his mouth to riff on that. Micky slapped the back of his hand under his chin and closed his own mouth with a snap of his teeth before Mike could do it for him. “Thanks.”

Mike stretched an arm to the icebox for milk and to the drawers for a bowl and spoon, but had to stand to get the cereal from the cupboard. It meant he could see the calendar, with Peter’s work commitments written on it. For once, his turn to earn money had coincided with him being offered session musician work, meaning Mike didn’t have to redraw the schedule for him. And Peter enjoyed playing with his folk friends the Four Winds, so even though Wednesday and Thursday had been tough, full days in the studio on Santa Monica Boulevard, and Thursday, yesterday, even more so with playing at the Duke Box too, Peter had enjoyed it.

He should be relaxing all today, like they both had on Monday for their belated monthiversary, and on Tuesday, sleeping that off, with the others still away in San Francisco until they got back just in time for the Tuesday evening Duke Box gig. But instead, Peter was going to help out a friend. He was always doing favors for people. Mike really wished Peter would learn to say no, to toughen up a little over things like that. But then, well, he wouldn’t be Peter, Mike reflected. Well, he’d see to it Peter got as much rest as possible today before he had to head out. Well, as much rest as he could with the pad stinking like a greasy spoon and the younger two squabbling like, well, like they did.

“You’re committed to this. With the food?” Mike was just asking Davy when there was a knock on the open door. “Hey, Bobby!” Mike stood to greet the postman and take the large flat parcel from him. “Just the guy I want to see.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Bobby nodded at the box.

“No, not that. But thanks, yeah.” Mike finished tucking it away in the bureau and stood. Depending on what Bobby had to tell them, maybe they could just enjoy the day—Bobby knew the word on the streets. “How’s everything along Beechwood? Any more news about the beach robberies? I know there’s been more than a few and I doubt they just stopped, right?”

“Don’t seem so. Yeah, this summer is worse than previous years.”

Mike had gleaned as much, that these recent sneak thefts were occurring every day, beachgoers being robbed from sunup to sundown.

“And people are still, well…fired up about it?”

“People still gossiping, still mad as fire, uh-huh.” Bobby repositioned his uniform cap. “Even Mrs. Purdey, and she’s the soul of kindness. Nice lady. Does a lot of work down at the mission with the vagrants.”

“Is that the maritime mission?” Micky came up behind Mike. “That marine place? For down and out sailors who aren’t in the service any longer?

“I don’t know.” Bobby frowned at Micky.

“Yeah, you know!” The way Micky slapped Bobby on the arm told Mike that the worst was yet to come. “That place for discharged seamen!”

“Yeah, so many sailors there it’s awash with seamen,” Davy threw in.

“Jesus, guys!” Mike closed his eyes for a second, glad he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “Sorry, Bobby. And the thefts are still going on?

“Uh, yeah.” Bobby never came very far into the pad but took a half-step back now. “Yeah. Family staying at 1245? Had their bag stolen on the beach just right here yesterday. Money, ID, and all. Keys in it too—they hadda break a window to get in and they gotta get the locks changed today.”

The house owners would be furious, and what a lousy thing to happen to the vacationers. “Guess they won’t come back here next year,” Mike mused. And if word spread, vacation lets would be a no-go.

“There goes the neighborhood,” Micky agreed, sniffing the air and rushing to scrape whatever was burning from the bottom of the pan.

“And yeah, a lot of Beechwood still thinks it’s probably connected to the long-hairs at the weird house.” Bobby lowered his voice, wincing in sympathy.

“Well, thanks, Bobby.” Mike shook his hand before he left.

“Long-hairs…weird house…say, they sound fun. Do we know them?” Micky quipped. Guy had hearing like a lynx, when it suited him.

“I’ll introduce you.” Davy tugged Micky over to the mirror and gestured around at the pad. “Mike, this isn’t fair.”

“I know.” Mike patted Davy’s shoulder. “I hate this atmosphere that’s building. And it’s the reason why we’re keeping watch on the beach—catch those damn sneak-thief robbers red-handed, huh?”

“And clear our names.” Micky nodded, and dived for the glutinous mass in the pan again.

“Micky, this…food…” Mike used the term loosely. “Is connected to spending the day on the beach, trying to spot the thief, how?”

“Well, Mikey, you know how we’ve been staking out the beach in disguise?” Mike started.

“Yep, sure do, seeing as how it was my idea.” Mike sat and took an apple. He didn’t have the strength to make cereal.

“And that the disguises Davy and I have been trying were…or weren’t…”

Mike…didn’t want to think about them. The photographer—Micky, in a stick-on mustache and beard and black turtleneck—and his model—Davy, in a black-and-white Carnaby Street minidress, with a white leather cap and go-go boots, and a long wig? Micky as a doddery old millionaire, all blazer, cravat and gray hair, and Davy in a pristine white uniform dress and blue cape, as his nurse? Mike gave a weak nod. Micky…had issues, Mike was beginning to think.

“I told Davy—”

“And I told you no way was I being your surf bunny.” Davy’s tone and the barbecue prongs he held settled the argument. “But when I disguised myself as a food vendor yesterday, not only could I wander all over the sands, but I made good money! And now old copycat here wants in on the act. Oh and he thinks he can do better.”

“Well, duh! People are gonna want my good old U S of A food over your limey… What it is?” Micky asked.

“Chips with a splash!” Davy held up the fryer’s wire basket for a final shake and Mike saw the thick-cut French fries it held. Steak fries, they called those thick ones, back home.

“Splash?” he queried.

“Uh-huh. Hot splash, if they want gravy”—Davy tipped his pan of bubbling brown gloop into a stainless steel container—“or cold splash, if they want salt and vinegar. Or there’s a squirt of red sauce.” He waggled the condiments as he assembled them. He'd improved on yesterday. Well, advanced. No saying if it was an improvement.

Mike took up a page of the newspaper Davy had ripped into single-page rectangles to wrap around the smaller square of greaseproof paper he served his wares in. “Wow, you’re really committing to this,” came his comment on seeing the pages were from the _Manchester Evening News_ , the Saturday edition his sisters sent him every month. “Really,” he repeated, indicating Davy’s costume. Some sort of suit with short pants, a vest, and a top hat. Theatrical-looking, was as close as Mike could get to a description.

Micky made a rude noise. “All that ‘’Ere, guv’nor, would you like some more?’ schtick won’t help you! Beachgoers won’t want foreign muck when they can have—”

“American muck?” Davy raised an eyebrow at the brown, well, muck Micky was concocting.

“My Sloppy Mickys!” Micky cried, slapping a ladleful of, well, slop from his pan into a waiting bun.

“I know I’m gonna regret this, but Sloppy Mickys?” Mike inquired.

“Like Sloppy Joes, but with more chilli. And…other secret ingredients. Ta-da!” And Micky was suddenly attired like he was in a Fourth of July parade, or a human Stars and Stripes.

“Say, you’re a Grand Old Flag,” Mike remarked, making Micky grin and march on the spot.

“Hey, Yankee Wet-Noodle Dandy, I read they’re making it a crime to desecrate the American flag.” Davy flicked Micky’s bowtie. “We don’t have that problem with the Union Jack, as my lovely assistant will demonstrate.” There was a pause, in which nothing happened. “I said, ‘as my lovely assistant will demonstrate’.” Davy raised his voice.

“Oh, right!” came a female voice from outside. “I mean, cor blimey, bloody hell.” And Toby came in. Dressed in a red, white, and blue bikini, the red being red crosses on a white background, straining over her chest, and the blue, well there wasn’t enough of it to tell. “Bob’s me uncle,” Toby added. “It’s a pea-souper, so ’elp me God.”

A silence tended to greet Toby’s remarks at the best of time, so today was no exception, only this one was a little longer as everyone, Davy included, tried to get to grips with what she seemed to imagine was an English accent.

“What?” Micky blinked furiously at Davy. “You dirty rat! I didn’t know we could have chicks!”

“ _You_ can’t,” Davy answered.

“And that’s Amanda’s bikini.” Micky tore his eyes from Toby posing hands on hips, torso twisted and one leg crossed behind the other. “And we’re seeing each other, which makes it kinda mine. Like, half mine.”

“Which half?” Davy waved a hand up and down Toby, as though pointing out her…selling points.

“It doesn’t matter.” Micky turned to bring up a wheeled cart, one Pop used, and similar to the one Davy was using, and started loading up his Sloppy Mickys. “I know I’ll out-sell you.”

“Anything’s possible,” Davy agreed. “You know, Toby, I think you look a bit hot? Might be a good idea to wet that bikini down, keep you cool?” He aimed his smirk at Micky. “Let’s get you under the outside shower, on the way down to the beach, yeah?”

“Phwoar, I’m gobsmacked. No, chuffed.” Toby nodded. “Happy as Larry.”

“Never mind her bikini, I think Toby helped herself to Amanda’s homemade UK to US phrasebook,” Mike mused. _And misunderstood it._

“I should cocoa,” Toby agreed. “Hey, I’m getting good at this! ’Ere, you blokes, let’s go get some fags!”

The trio and their two fully loaded food carts exited and Mike checked all the hob rings were off, scribbled _Ignore the mess_ on a sheet of butcher’s paper for Peter, pulled on a T-shirt of Peter’s, grabbed his props, and followed the others. He took care to lock up. Irony of ironies if, in setting out to catch the sneak-thief, they got robbed. Mike didn’t speak much British, but hoped the day brought no argy-bargy.

“So we’ll split up?” he confirmed with the others, at the bottom of the sundeck steps. He shuffled his fliers. He’d helped himself to a pile, from a good number of places on the Strip, to hand out as he wandered the beach, In casual clothes, an old college tee and cut-off jeans, and with a faded blue denim bucket-type sunhat pulled down low, he looked the part of some young student, making a few bucks from a casual vacation job. He’d start with the colored leaflets advertising the new head shop—

“Mike. Mike!” Micky brought his hand down on Mike’s papers to get his attention. “I’m just thinking about Sandra…”

“Sandra…?”

“Meoww.” Micky mimed stroking his whiskers and swinging a tail around.

“Oh, catwoman, Right.” Mike considered the woman and her striped tiger–wasn’t it?—bathing suit. “But don’t you think you got enough on your plate?”

“That better have been no pun intended, Mikey, because I do the jokes.” Micky settled his hat on better.

“I mean, you’re kinda seeing Lola, right? And sorta still seeing Deandra? And now there’s Amanda? She’s—”

“His Brit on the side,” called Davy, his smug tone saying _I_ do the jokes, actually.

“No! Not for dating! I mean hire her for the day. Pay her.”

“ _Jesus_ , Micky!” Mike wasn’t often appalled, but—

“As a model! To advertise my wares.” Micky rapped on his cart, making the metal clang.

“But she’s a cat…” Mike tried to find a connection between a big cat, with ears and a tail, and browned beef mixed with onion and God knew what and served on a bun, then…didn’t want to know of any connection.

“I bet she’s got other costumes,” Micky argued.

“I think the company hiring her supplies them.” The jungle-cat look had been because of a tropical sun product, Mike recalled.

“I could find her something.…make her something.”

Mike didn’t need clairvoyant powers to see the itsy-bitty teeny-weeny one-piece bikini Micky had in mind.

“ _Mono_ kini,” Micky corrected him, rubbing his hands together and licking his lips.

“Micky…” Mike paused to hand out a leaflet to a couple, then got a hand to the back of Micky’s shoulder, getting him moving among the beachgoers. “She’s probably booked up with jobs for the summer, don’t you think? Focus on what you got. And on what’s going on.” He indicated the beach and sea, filling with people for all it wasn’t even lunchtime. People were swimming in the waves, running in the shallows, playing games on the sand, lying down relaxing, sitting around chatting, listening to transistors…

“You mean like that dude? That suspicious shifty guy, who keeps looking all around him and moving about from group to group, and who’s carrying a big bag…and who’s coming this way!” Micky readied himself and Mike grabbed him around the waist from behind just in time to hold him back from whatever he was planning to do.

“Hi, Mike. Interruptin’?” asked the guy, taking in the intimate-seeming tableau they made.

Mike shook his head.

“Want anything?”

Mike shook his head again, and with a nod, the guy shuffled off, eyeing up another group of young people, still shooting wary looks around.

“And that’s not suspicious?” demanded Micky.

Mike removed his arms from around Micky’s waist. “No, that’s a supplier.” He waited a second for Micky to catch on. Where did the kid think the pot they smoked came from? “Wheezy, to be exact.”

“That’s— Oh.” Micky deflated. “I…guess I thought he’d be older, name like that.”

Mike handed out a couple more fliers as Davy doubled back from where he was a little ahead, sniggering, obviously having heard the exchange. “Hey, Boy Blunder, want to up the bet? Like, not only will I sell more than you, I bet you won’t catch this thief, either.”

“You’re wrong! I mean, you’re on!” Micky exclaimed. “Mike, what do I mean?”

Mike missed Peter. “You mean you’re doing your civic duty and going to use your observation skills to spot anything suspicious and then”—he spoke quickly before Micky could interrupt—"tell me so I can confirm.”

“So you don’t go off half-cocked,” Davy tossed in.

“Ha! You’d know about that!” Micky retorted, the glint in his eye telling Mike he was about to mention that night, with Jo-Ann and Leah, when Davy had been unable to…stay the course.

“No, I wouldn’t. Pleased to say I don’t know anything about your cock, mate.” Davy rejoined Toby. “We’re gonna find the tea leaf first, right?” he asked her, as they walked away.

“And the thruppeny bits,” Toby agreed.

“Well, they’re obvious, luv.” Davy admired her…charms.

“I thought the slang for those was Bristols,” Micky asked, puzzled.

“I guess Brits have a lot of words for, erm…”

“Headlights.” Micky nodded.

“Well, yes.”

“Hooters.”

“Those too.

“Torpedos. Bazookas. Sweater pupp—”

“All right!” Mike _really_ missed Peter. “Let’s just walk around and see if we can spot—”

“That guy there!”

“Where…oh. _Oh._ ” Mike used the small binoculars Micky passed him and peeked at the guy…who was using bigger, professional-looking binoculars, but not to look at birds or even out to sea, but at something—or someone—nearer to the shoreline.

“Now he _is_ suspicious, right?” Micky asked.

“I’d say so, by the way he’s got one of the beach’s few sun tents…and he’s sitting behind it, to hide himself.”

“So he can stake out his victims!” Micky hissed, squatting down and drawing a lot of attention to himself.

“Cool it.” Mike signaled to Micky to look casual—as much as he could in that outfit and pushing a metal food cart—and follow him. They made their way along the sand, staying behind clumps of people, and Mike assessed their suspect. He wore shorts and sandals, but formal-looking ones, and was making notes in a small book. He was also looking at a picture or photo, then peering from it to the person closer to the water’s edge. “Down!” Mike ordered, helping Micky crouch behind the cart as the suspect rose and strolled toward the shallows.

“He’s gone to rob his mark!” Micky pointed. “We can catch him red-handed.”

They separated and concealed themselves behind the sides of the small open-sided tent to watch as the guy ambled down to where the man he’d been spying on was now wetting his feet in the wavelets. Surprising Mike, the guy ignored the man’s stuff lying on his towel and strolled toward the man instead, seeming to strike up a conversation.

“Ooh, I hate a chatty thief,” Micky exclaimed. “It’s like, so _blatant_ , you know?”

“That’s a thing?” Mike wondered. “Well, I guess we can ask him.”

They didn’t have long to wait until the guy returned.

“Aha!” Micky cried, springing out. “Gotch—ah! Ow! Mike, help!” In leaping, he caught a foot in the tent’s rope, and his momentum brought the striped awning down on top of him.

“Stay still,” Mike advised—Micky’s struggles were rolling him up in the red and white canvas like an unseasonal candy cane.

“We still gotcha,” Micky claimed, squinting up from his striped wrapping at the guy. “We know who you are and what you’re up to, mister!”

“So you know I’m a PI, tailing a suspect for a client?” the guy cut in, flicking open his wallet to reveal a laminated private investigator’s licence.

“Give me that!” Micky demanded, struggling to reach out an arm for it.

“No, don’t,” Mike begged. Micky would vanish it…and use it. “A suspect? That guy down there?” He pointed at the man. The…familiar-looking man.

“Yeah. He should be at work but for the last couple days hasn’t gone in, just slipped off. Wife thinks he’s cheating on her.”

“But he isn’t,” Mike said, still looking over at the man.

“’S’right.” The guy shaded his eyes and frowned at Mike. “He—”

“Just wants a bit of peace. From his work but mostly from his wife.”

“ _Wow_ , Mike!” Micky was mostly untangled. “You’re _good_!”

“Not really. That’s Richard White. And your client’s Shelley, his wife?” Mike blew out a breath and shook his head. “Yeah, I bet the poor sap does need some peace and quiet.”

“Ah. Like that is it?” The PI grinned and reached down to pull Micky up. Micky stumbled a little and grabbed at the PI to steady himself. “You okay, kid?”

“Yes, thanks, mister.”

Micky’s sly grin alerted Mike. “Mick, give the nice PI back his credentials. Sorry, man.”

“ _Mike!_ ” protested Micky as the guy patted his pocket and came up empty. Mike led Micky away. “Well, never mind. I bet we spot the thief soon. Some lowlife, spying on innocent beach users, like, say, a bunch of teenagers, plotting how to rob them of their valuables, when they’re distracted, having fun at the water’s edge. Some huge, scowling guy, snooping on them from a perch on the rocks, poised, ready to spring into action and pounce…”

Mike stared. “That’s very specific. It’s almost like you’re describing—”

“That man on the rocks, glaring at that bunch of rich kids!” Micky indicated the thick-set, hard-faced man.

“Don’t try to tackle him,” Mike warned. The guy was enormous.

“I won’t. I’m gonna warn the kids!” Micky called over his shoulder, racing toward the bunch of preppies. Only he didn’t reach them. Didn’t even reach the shoreline before the guy sprang from the rocks and tackled _him_. Right to the ground. Mike started to rush forward, but thought better of it. He could barely make out anything Micky said, what with his face being pressed into the wet sand, but caught words grunted out by the big man, such as “bodyguard” and “millionaire’s son” and “if I catch you going near him again…”

“So, not the thief?” Mike helped brush Micky down as he limped back.

“Notthief,” Micky agreed indistinctly, spitting out wet sand. He closed one nostril with a forefinger and blew down the other, expelling more sand, then tilted his head to one side and hit his top ear with the palm of a hand, to dislodge more from his bottom ear. A small crab fell out and scuttled away. Micky narrowed his eyes at Mike. “We’re getting nowhere and yet you look chipper. What gives?”

“Oh, you know.” Mike passed out a couple of leaflets to a middle-aged couple, only noticing afterward they were for a clandestine showing of a skin-flick, when the wife tutted loudly and the husband looked interested. Mike watched him tuck the sheet of paper away. “I thought this beach-combing approach was too scattergun, and we’d need to lure out a thief. With a decoy.”

“Right!” Micky nodded. “No, I don’t get it. How?”

“Not how. Who.” Mike turned Micky to see Nyles wandering down to a spot on the sand. “I asked him to come down and spread his things about all over his towel…” After some weird digging in the sand, Nyles did just that, scattering his radio, wristwatch, wallet, and a small leather attaché case around his towel. “Then he’s gonna go in the sea and leave all that unattended…”

Nyles did that too, wandering off over the trench he’d dug around his towel to paddle, kneel, and sit in the breaking waves. Mike and Micky watched. Mike distributed more leaflets. Davy, over yonder, pulled off his costume to parade about in a pair of Union Jack-patterned shorts instead, and was soon busy selling newspaper-wrapped fries to the line of chicks that soon formed around him. Micky stripped off his Uncle Sam costume…right down to a pair of red, white, and blue briefs. Very briefs. Mike looked away. Micky sold a few Sloppy Mickys.

And all the time, no one went near Nyles’ towel, only Nyles, returning from the water’s edge.

“Nyles?” Mike questioned, walking over.

“Oh, hey, Mike!” Nyles squinted up at him.

“No one came near your stuff, man.” Mike didn’t get it.

“No, they wouldn’t,” Nyles agreed. “Not with a keep-away spell around it.” He trailed his fingers in the moat he’d dug all around his towel. Water sloshed sluggishly in the channel he’d made.

“A _spell_?” Mike repeated, thinking he’d misheard.

“Just a simple half-banishing, half-binding one.” Nyles nodded. “Little chant, pinch of cayenne pepper, palmful of crushed sage… Of course, this should be running water, but, oh well. Well! Ha! That was punny, man! Because I mentioned running wat—”

“A _spell_?” Mike repeated again, knowing he’d heard right this time, but not understanding.

“Well, sure, man.” Myles looked confused at Mike’s confusion. “My mother’s a witch. I thought you knew? I told you she was.”

“I-I didn’t think you meant _literally_. Like, a _real_ witch.” Mike’s head was spinning.

“What, like, fly on a broomstick? Oh, man!” Nyles laughed.

“A keep-away spell?” Mike was only now catching up with the conversation in which he was a participant. Wow, this must be how Nyles felt, most days.

“Uh-huh.” Nyles settled down. “It’s how come I never get parking tickets, dude.”

“You…don’t have a car.”

“And that.” And Nyles was asleep.

Mike really, really missed Peter. He’d be at work now, covering his surfer friend’s shift. He wasn’t that far away. Mike could walk along, visit him, take a break from the trials and tribulations he was being subjected to, added to by Davy getting entangled with what he’d discovered to be an undercover cop on the same mission they were—“how was I to know? He was perving at all the birds, man”—and Micky gate-crashing a gang of secretive-looking teens sneaking off together behind the rocks…to bury a time capsule for a summer project.

No, Mike had a job to do. He had to focus, keep his eyes peeled and his mind on things around him, not on Peter, so near and yet so far. Yes, Mike had to concentrate, keep alert to things…like the young black-haired, heavily tanned guy, wearing an oversized ball cap pulled low, T-shirt and long shorts, who was patrolling up and down. Oh, and signaling to another brown-complexioned, dark-haired man, this one in a trucker’s hat, directing him over to another area of the sand, one where a large group of girls lounged and sat on beach towels, chatting, laughing, coming and going and totally distracted.

As Mike watched, the first guy started to make his slow, meandering way over there too, peering at each group or couple as he passed them. Enough was enough. “Hey!” Mike yelled. “You there! Stop!” He couldn’t yell “Stop, thief,” as he hadn’t seen the guy steal anything. “Yeah, you!” he added as his quarry paused. But not for long—he turned and ran. _Damn!_


	12. August, 1966 part two

“Stop!” Mike called, but the guy didn’t, instead dodging between towels and parasols and beach tents, groups and couples, and heading for the waves. Damn! Mike gave chase, following his target into the water, running into the ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep ocean, and then, leaping forward into a chest-high wave, grabbing for the guy who’d already started to swim but was probably hampered by his baggy clothing, especially the shorts. Where’d he think he was heading? Did he have a boat waiting? Was that how the gang carried out the robberies?

Mike caught his feet, his hands slipping on cold rubbery-feeling skin. He leaped again, so his hold was now around the guy’s waist, at the same time the guy flipped around, to face Mike. The water had washed off the darkened foundation on his face and now his ball cap was lost to the waves, the water was washing out the dark brown from his normally blond hair too.

“ _J?_ ” Mike gasped.

“ _Mike?_ ” The Foreign Agents’ bassist was just as taken aback, but recovered quicker and let a wave push him even closer to Mike. He wiped water from his mouth. “I’d say we gotta stop meeting like this, but the way you chased me down and captured me? This make me your prize now?” He kissed his fingers, like a French chef. “Digg-ing- _it_!” he cawed.

“The hell?” Mike suddenly realized he was holding a wet J around the waist and dropped his hands. “What’s going on? Why’d you run?”

“Because you were chasing me! Why were you? Not that I object,” J asked in turn.

“Because you ran!” Mike answered, and realized they were getting nowhere. He made a grab for his denim sun hat and J’s black ball cap as they bobbed by.

“Seems we’re a good match, then,” came J’s comment as he accepted his cap. “Always thought so.”

“J, seriously. What are you doing on the beach? You and your accomplice, who I’m guessing is Al or Luke? Like this?” Mike indicated the mostly washed-off disguise. He bobbed nearer to J, buffeted by a wave. J made no attempt to step back.

“Luke. We’re keeping an eye on the beach—heard you cats got blamed for sneak robberies and it didn’t seem righteous to us. To me,” he amended, his eyes on Mike’s. “So thought I’d see what’s the what, dig? Oh, what, you’re all here doing the same, tryin’ to clear your names?”

“Yeah. Well, three of us. So what’s with the costume? And makeup?”

“Could ask you the same.” J fingered Mike’s T-shirt. “Not your usual buttoned-up-to-make-you-want-to-unbutton-it style.”

Mike didn’t dress like that, did he? And that wasn’t the effect it had, was it? J sighed as Mike remained silent. “I’m skipping work, and Luke too. Hence the disguise. If Daddy-o or big sis knew…can you say _heavy scene_?”

“Well, thanks, I guess.” Mike reached out a hand to shake J’s, and looking startled, J took it and shook.

“Yeah, risked life and limb for you,” J said.

“You mean you’ve had a Sloppy Micky?” Mike quipped, turning to head to shore.

“Nooo…but now you got me curious. Huh.” J, wading at his side, gave a thumbs-up to Luke and shaded his eyes to take a look at Micky in the middle distance. “Have you? And if you don’t answer in the negative within two seconds, I’m taking it as a yes.”

Mike smirked.

“ _Shit!_ ” J exclaimed. Reaching Luke at the shore, he grabbed the cigarette Luke held out to him and inhaled like it was oxygen. “’S’he serving up that’s so special?” came out on an exhale of smoke.

“Firm buns, word is,” Luke answered, making them both stare, until he indicated the lines of people at the food carts.

“It’s true.” Mike couldn’t resist it. “Big helping of meat and firm little buns.”

With J’s, “Arrggh! And I’m supposed to compete with _that_?” still floating on the afternoon air, Mike trudged his wet way onward, wondering if he should give up on his mission. And when he reached Davy, to find him being harangued by a woman who’d found a hair in her gravy, gravy that she complained was cold, he was half-decided to quit.

“Davy—” he started, only to be interrupted by a muscle-head shoving his way to the front of the line to Micky’s cart.

“Hey, you, you trying to come on to my chick?” the huge guy shouted. “What’s the big idea in asking her to hang out with you?”

“Oh, only because she looks good in her bikini,” Micky answered, gesturing as if it were obvious. It was, to him. He needed a chick in a two-piece, today even more than he usually wished for one. “And she fills it out real good, right?”

“Hey, wise guy!” called another voice, while the meathead was frowning over this.

“Yeah?” Micky replied without turning around.

“No, the short wise guy,” the newcomer, a scowling ginger-headed guy clarified.

“Davy, it’s for you,” Micky called across to where Davy was still arguing with the woman.

“Why’d you charge me twice as much as you charged _her_ for her fries?” the ginger guy continued, pointing at a chick.

“Oh, I didn’t charge you twice as much—I just charge the birds less,” Davy explained.

“Wha’?” greeted this.

“Yeah, they get half off—”

 _Please don’t say if they take half off_ , Mike prayed swiftly.

“For a snog,” came Davy’s explanation. “A French kiss, I mean.”

“Why you—” The disgruntled ginger customer grabbed the squeezy bottle of tomato ketchup from Davy’s cart and Davy snatched up Micky’s squeezy mustard in retaliation, fast as a gunslinger.

“Davy? What’s this I see?” came a new voice, a girl Mike thought he recognized from Davy’s arm, last week. “You’re seeing _this_ chick now?” Glaring at Toby, the chick walked between her and Davy…and into the line of fire, screaming when she got covered in ketchup and mustard.

Micky’s jubilant, “ _Food fight!_ ” and Toby’s, “Oh, blow me. No, bugger me,” were the last things Mike heard as he walked away. And the next thing he saw, a few yards on, was the undercover cop shaking Nyles’ hand and apprehending a scruffy-looking middle-aged guy toting a grimy duffel bag and who seemed frozen in place, one foot in the air, trying to cross Nyles’ bespelled moat.

“The thief was paralysed by my keep-away charm!” Nyles called out to Mike. “Look, it’s one of the bums—”

“ _Vagrants,_ ” the cop threw in.

“Vagrant bums from the mission,” Nyles continued. “He robbed the Purdeys’ house earlier. Even found out from Mrs. P where she keeps the spare key. Got their stuff in his bag, look.”

The cop’s horrified, “Don’t go through that—it’s evidence!” to Nyles bounced against Nyles’, “Oh, man! You didn’t think those candlesticks were real silver, did you?” to the robber. Nyles’ giggles serenaded Mike as he trudged back to the pad, relieved the culprit had been caught and _that_ problem solved, at least.

Mike showered, wanting the trials of the day gone from him, and changed…wanting to look nice for Peter. It was coming to the end of his stint and Mike planned to meet him, take him an early dinner—nothing that had been cooked by Davy or Micky. Peter was stationed farther down near the pier, away from the latest round of chaos, and so Mike hurried along to the white wooden structure that looked like a little house on stilts, or a seaside cabin with a ramp.

The flaps were down on the wide windows under the eaves, so Mike couldn’t see in, but the flag was flying, meaning the tower was occupied, and the red can, the floatation device, was still attached to the wall of the building, just as the bucket for washing sand off feet was still in place at the base of the ramp. Grinning, Mike sped up the slope, thinking he’d help Peter close up. The door was open and Peter was still inside, clipping his binoculars onto the bracket on the wall, preparing to leave. He looked up at the sound of footsteps.

“Michael?” He stood back for Mike to enter. “Oh wow, look at you!” He took in Mike’s flared-leg jeans, their hems ragged, his unbuttoned shirt, and the string of love beads. “Are those mine? And…” He got close enough to sniff Mike’s neck. “You’re wearing my cologne. Just a splash, like I do yours, and it’s so _groovy_. Michael, you’re a hippie!”

He moved back a little, but Mike still didn’t enter, just dropping the bag he carried onto the floor. His legs weren’t working and his mouth wasn’t doing much better. “Peter, you…you’re…” _The snap-waisted, top-of-the-thigh red shorts. The zip-up jacket. The hint of a white T-shirt under it…_

“A lifeguard?” Peter said, brow furrowed.

“So fucken _sexy_!” Mike burst out, finally had enough breath to speak. Well, squeak. “Sexi _er_. Sexi _est_.” Unable to drag his gaze from _those_ thighs in _those_ shorts, he was about coming in his pants.

“Oh. Thanks.” Peter brushed non-existent sand from his legs. His barefoot legs. His sexy— “You reminded me—I have to leave this uniform for Sandy, the guy I’m filling in for. He offered to pay me for covering for him and I said I’d take half, as we’re a little broke. Are you proud of me for…hardening up?”

Mike squirmed at the word choice, not doubting for one second it had been deliberate, for all Peter’s air of innocence.

“So I’d better change.” Peter reached around Mike to close the door and pull down the privacy shutter on its glass panel, leaving a shift of sunlight slanting in.

“Lemme help.” Mike swallowed to get his dry mouth working, then made his fingers obey him enough to unzip the Ike jacket Peter wore…revealing a tight white T-shirt., outside which a St. Christopher medallion on a slim silver chain gleamed. “Leave those on.” His voice came out husky. “Please.”

“Are you sure?” Peter queried, taking Mike’s hands to the snaps of his shorts, and popping them open with him…to reveal a hint of a darker-red and smaller-sized, tighter-fitting item of clothing.

“Those tight red trunks!” And Mike went from a husky growl to a chihuahua whine. “You—”

“Found where you hid them.” But Peter didn’t look mad at Mike’s actions. Smug, if anything. _And snug._

“They’re never regulation wear, shotgun,” Mike babbled. “So, you knew I was coming?”

“Already?” Peter smirked.

“ _Peter._ ” Yeah, nearly. “Peter.” Mike threw up his hands in defeat. “I gotta fuck you.”

“And they say romance is dead.”

“Ain’t nothing dead here, boy,” Mike assured him, pressing against him. “Or there,” he continued, insinuating his hand inside Peter’s briefs, where Peter was very much alive. And ready. And waiting.

Peter went to shrug his opened jacket off his shoulders.

“No, leave that on. Leave it all on,” Mike babbled. He yanked down the shorts and swim trunks just enough. “God, Peter, I can’t decide if I wanna suck you off or jerk you off.”

“Decision, decisions,” sighed Peter, sinking to the floor of the lifeguard tower, to lie with one leg bent and its bare foot flat on the floor and his folded arms behind his head. He could have illustrated a poster for _relaxed_ …except one very important part of him wasn’t at all so. Nope, it was peeking out, rarin’ to go. Which made the sight totally picture-perfect. “Don’t ask me to tell you. As you know, I’m easy.”

“Yeah, and I thank God for it.” Mike followed Peter down. “Arrggh,” he lamented, in an echo of J. Peter, extra tan, extra freckled, looked delicious. Would taste delicious. _Yes._ “I gotta get my mouth to you.”

Peter wriggled so Mike could get between his legs and return his hand to Peter’s crotch. Or, rather, to his cock, hot and rigid beneath those sinfully tight, shamelessly red, briefs. Mike couldn’t resist trailing his lips over its outline, making it twitch, before easing the waistband down to set it fully free. Within seconds, Peter was clutching his shoulders as Mike took the swollen, glistening head of his cock between his lips and gave a long, slow lick over the slit, the salty pre-cum this leaked onto his tongue making him give a long, slow suck too.

Peter’s half-groan, half-sigh echoed around the small room. “And then you’ll fuck me?”

Mike nodded, the bob his head gave taking Peter’s cock deeper. Peter hissed. “Huh. Thought you’d brought me dinner, but you’re the one eat– _innnng_! Ohhh…”

“Got you food,” Mike removed his mouth to inform him. “Picked up stuff along the Strip.” He’d gotten Peter some slices of meatloaf made from ground-up chestnuts and mushrooms, near as Mike could tell, from Thyme & Season, plus a colorful salad, and had also gotten a little something in the head shop two doors along. “Now, will you stop talking?”

“I can’t promise I won’t make noise,” Peter replied, his voice already breathy.

“Oh I guaran _tee_ you will.” Impatient, Mike pulled Peter’s shorts and trunks down over his hips. He wanted to leave them on Peter’s thighs, and luckily they didn’t restrict his legs just when Mike was of a mind to get between them and have Peter hook at least one over Mike’s shoulder, to drape down his back. Mike enjoyed how the long muscles tightened and bunched when he got Peter worked up—and he intended to. He threw Peter a raised-eyebrow, smirked-mouth look, one Peter understood. Mike wanted to get him off quickly…for their first go. If Peter wanted to resist, to try to stay the course, up to him. _Want_ and _try_ being the operative verbs. Mike had more skills than scruples, when it came to exerting his mastery over Peter.

He slid his lips slowly down the rigid flesh of Peter’s cock, licking the tip of tongue down the vein that ran from the base to just under the head, making it fill and throb enough for him to trail the flat of his tongue along it. It also made Peter arch his hips, which was when Mike took him deeper into his mouth, a swift and sure surprise, and at the same time cup his balls, squeezing gently then harder. The sounds of pleasure this pulled from Peter were so familiar to Mike now, even though they were always different each time. Mike loved every note. Peter had both feet flat on the floor now, his ass raised.

Sucking, squeezing, Mike ran a caressing finger over that extra-sensitive skin under Peter’s balls, stopping at his hole. Refusing to release Peter’s cock, Mike felt around one-handed for the bag he’d brought with him, and the newly purchased lube in it. Lucky the place was small and his bag within reach. He flipped the lid from the small jar and scooped in a finger, lubing it and loading a fat glob of the new stuff onto the tip. Peter was watching his actions, so Mike watched him, saw him react to Mike’s finger pushing inside, slick, steady, past the resistance Peter’s muscles put up. He hadn’t taken Peter for a couple of days, and he’d tightened up, almost fighting Mike’s intrusion. Which was when Mike added a second finger, but didn’t add extra lube. Peter’s channel was still slippery from the amount Mike had used on his first foray. Slippery enough for Mike to pull his fingers apart and stretch Peter, preparing him.

He sucked harder on Peter’s dick, using the edge of his teeth to add a tiny bite to it. Peter sometimes liked that. Yep, today was one of those times—Peter’s body bucked at the sensation and he gasped out loud. The way he groaned Mike’s name was almost a protest. And when Mike pushed farther inside, aiming for the prostate, the tightening of Peter’s balls in his hand and the wild thrash of his body under Mike’s told him just as much as Peter’s hissed “Michael— _fuck_ …gonna come,” that Peter was near the edge.

Good. Just where Mike liked him. _Needed_ him, he admitted. He pulled back and let go of Peter’s balls until he held just the tip of Peter’s shaft in his mouth and made sure Peter was looking him in the eyes for long, long seconds before plunging with one hard, deliberate stroke all the way down. He slid his free hand beneath Peter’s T-shirt, wanting to feel the pounding of his heart under his palm. Peter’s body arched high when his orgasm hit, and he came hard, filling Mike’s mouth and throat.

The amount took Mike by surprise and he had to fight to breathe, not to choke, and not to spill Peter’s sweet-salty cum from his mouth. He did it, holding Peter as tight as he could until his cock softened. Then he released him, sliding upward over his chest to kiss his lips, only aware then of how hard he himself was, how painfully hard, his erection straining at the fly and leaking pre-cum that was threatening to stain the denim of his jeans a darker blue.

As their lips touched, Peter opened his eyes and raised a hand to brush his sweat-soaked bangs from his forehead. His face held that beautiful flush Mike adored seeing. And causing. Pity the light wasn’t enough to see the exact shade his eyes had turned. Bright as jewels, and dazed with pleasure, Mike would bet. “I wanted to last longer,” Peter whispered. “But I came so fast.”

“Yeah.” Mike’s grin was half-crooked with pride, and half-twisted in pain.

“Yeah, you made me come so fast,” Peter corrected, using a fingertip to trace Mike’s proud smile.

Mike ran his finger down Peter’s nose and off the little slope of the end. “Couldn’t help it. Help myself. Not when you look and sound so fucken gorgeous when you come. Now just relax and feel, well, the glow, I guess.”

Peter stretched a little to skim his borrowed tee off, then wriggled to peel the shorts and briefs, so Mike kept him company by opening the fastenings on his jeans, to free his cock. He smoothed a little more lube onto his hand and slicked himself up, curious to see if—

“Michael?” Peter wriggled. No; writhed. “This glow you mentioned…”

“Yeah? How d’you feel?” Mike was curious to see if it was anything like he did. He’d only lubed his cock just now, but it had been in contact with the substance, warmed to body heat courtesy of Peter…

“Relaxed and glowy and…” He squirmed, the pink flush returning to his face and spreading to his neck. “What? What’s that?” He pointed at the small jar Mike had used.

“Oh, just cannabis lube.” Mike toyed with his dick, making sure it was coated.

“ _Canna—_ Oh!”

Mike could see the picture in Peter’s mind’s eye like a movie, the memory of the store they’d been in, them seeing the product, Peter murmuring he’d be curious to try it…

“You have a higher tolerance to the stuff than I do. I’d better make sure you get more.” Mike made a _turn around_ circle with a forefinger and, s slow smile taking over his face, Peter moved, to lie face down.

Mike stripped, working his cock a little. He felt eager to fuck, sure—when wasn’t he, with Peter?—but sort of coasting too, as though he’d already rubbed one out, to take the edge off. But the edge was there… “But maybe not a knife-edge?” he muttered.

A long “ummm” came from Peter, lying flat, his head pillowed on his bent arms. He positioned his head to see Mike, to watch him coat his palm with more of the thick ointment-type lube and jerk himself, making sure to spread the slick.

“Promised you a big helping,” Mike murmured.

“Stop boasting,” came from Peter, making Mike giggle.

He leaned down to whisper in Peter’s ear. “Ready for me?”

Peter’s, “Bout five minutes ago,” retort earned him a slap on one gorgeous cheek, and it was still quivering when Mike drove the head of his cock into Peter’s entrance, meeting almost no resistance: Peter was more than ready for him, his hips pushing back in greeting. It meant Mike could power all the way in in one perfect thrust that sucked the breath from Peter in an equally perfect hiss. Mike paused to savor the feel, the heat, the constriction, the being there, being _one_.

Peter lifted his head and Mike leaned down, claiming his lips as well as his ass. Rocking his hips to graze over the bump of Peter’s prostate had Peter gasping into Mike’s mouth, their tongues meshing and their bodies moving together in a slow, sensuous, almost languid rhythm. Mike didn’t want it to speed up, never wanted it to end.

He lay and pulled Peter or Peter pushed himself so Mike was behind him, curled into him and Peter pressing into him. Huh—it was usually when they sixty-nined he thought of the infinity symbol, with them curved into the other and making a circle, but he had that endless feeling now, more so when he wrapped an arm around Peter. Like this he could play with Peter’s cock, and suck and bite at Peter’s skin, the spot where neck became shoulder, taste the sweat and the sea and sand under it at the same time as he fucked Peter, still slow, still unhurried.

“Love this. Love fucking you,” he whispered into Peter’s ear as if it were a secret just for the two of them. “Love you.” That was no secret. He thought he caught Peter’s whispered reply, the echo of Mike’s words, but if he didn’t, he understood it from the buck of Peter’s body into his, the thicker moans he was making.

Or maybe that was Mike, as he moved faster now, with his body tightening and gathering, shuddering and shattering, then climaxing deep and hard into Peter’s body, Peter’s name on his lips and both Mike’s arms around Peter and clasping him tight. He couldn’t move for a few minutes, but forced himself, mouthing a kiss on the nape of Peter’s neck, making him huff out a laugh, before sliding his sweat-slippery arms free.

He went to pull free, but Peter twisted onto his front and hooked his feet and calves over Mike’s legs, then looped his arms around Mike’s waist, holding him, holding them joined a little longer, Mike’s still-heaving chest to Peter’s back. “I gotta move,” Mike said with reluctance. He must be too heavy, and the wooden floor was far from comfortable. Peter let him slide off.

More by luck than planning, Mike managed to lie on top of some of their clothes, cushioning his back a little. “C’m’ere,” he coaxed, helping Peter lie alongside and draped over him, close, kissing, cuddling. The soft, languid sensation persisted, but probably had nothing to do with the new lube. It was more the rightness, the calm, of being with Peter, especially after a day that had buzzed and bitten like a swarm of mosquitoes he wanted to swat. He pulled Peter under his chin to kiss the top of his head.

“Dunno if it’s the cannabis, but I’ve got the munchies,” came from his chest, Peter’s words tickling him.

“Me too. Well, guess we burned off some calories.” Oh yeah—Peter must be starving. He’d been in and out of the ocean nonstop for a good few hours, most likely. “You know, Davy and Micky were tryin’ to get a rise out of me last night.”

“Oh?” Peter propped his chin on Mike’s sternum, making Mike glad it wasn’t Micky doing it. His pointy chin would’ve hurt. “So it’s an orgy when I’m not in the den?”

“What— Oh!” Mike had almost missed the joke. He was tired. “No. Saying how chicks would be pretending to be in distress in the water, needing you to rescue them when they saw you up on the tower. Or rescue their bikini tops, that’d floated off in the waves.”

“That last was Micky, right?” Peter shook his head. “So, you like the uniform?”

“Oh yeah. Much better than any costume I’ve seen today.”

“Want me to see if I can get one?” Peter raised an eyebrow. “I can rescue you…”

 _You already did._ Mike didn’t say it out loud, but he thought Peter must have caught it, by the way he took Mike’s face in his hands and dropped a gentle kiss on his lips, one that soon became heated. _Uniform._ The word Peter had used registered.

“What?” Peter pulled back and eyed Mike.

“Oh, nothing.” _Something._ The parcel that’d come for him earlier. Peter had asked him a couple of times if Mike still had his Air Force uniform. Well, Mike did and had sent back home for it—and it had arrived that morning. His dress uniform… His mind spun with possibilities.

“Well, you’re grinning at something.” Peter sat now, staring down at him, trying to read his mind.

“Just thinking, ‘the sky’s no limit.’” The Air Force motto.

‘“Aim high,’” Peter replied, making Mike stare at him.

Because that was another Air Force slogan, as if Peter knew what Mike was thinking. Knew…and approved. No; more than that. As if he couldn’t wait…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter to go!


	13. January, 1967

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit intense. (Yeah, that's polite-talk for filthy.)

_“SOS. Save Our Sunset Strip!”_

Peter agreed with the acronym and phrase, of course he did, chanting them along with the other concerned citizens attending this gathering, or meeting, or protest at the Hear Say, on the Strip. Just, he was a little bit slower, his brain sticking on the fact that the acronym had fewer letters that there were words in the phrase.

He understood that _SOSS_ would be harder to chant, as it would make the current strong amphimacer, the three stressed syllables, of _SOS_ into the stressed-unstressed trochee then stressed-stressed spondee of _SOSS_ , jerkier and less cadenced. It would also chop at the existing rhythm of the acronym and phrase when said together, breaking up the current three stressed syllables and following three iambs, which were easy and natural to chant.

Peter passed from the aural to the visual, the _SOS_ printed in thick black on the paper pamphlet he held. It might have struck people as inauspicious; might even have struck Peter, in other situations. But he’d seen it before—had helped organize the leaflets—and hadn’t felt anything fateful attached to it. And most people might have flinched at the combination of the distress call and today’s date of Friday the thirteenth, but again, not Peter. Thirteen was his lucky number and he’d been born on Friday the thirteenth. It was a good date, one he liked—not least for the number of birthdays he’d celebrated on it—for all it made people think him odd. Well, one of the reasons people though him odd…

Was it the date that today, now, was sending the beginning of a prickle, that first slight-and-not-quite itch, that almost tingle down his spine? He stood straight, letting the sensation build, and squeezed his shoulder blades together to warm up for it. Whatever _it_ should prove to be…

More supporters squeezing in packed the coffee shop still further, and he waved at faces he knew in this new knot of people. They inched to the sides, with a couple easing their way to the front. Pity Micky and Davy hadn’t been able to make it the event, especially as the topic was more pertinent to them than him, or Mike, say.

Jewel was speaking now, startling those gathered, Peter included, when she listed the latest batch of the Strip’s clubs that’d had their youth permits rescinded, making them off-limits to anybody under twenty-one, like Davy or Micky.

“That’s twelve now!” Leo, at this side, nudged him.

“One more to thirteen,” Peter replied, that sense of anticipation, an incipient thrumming, growing stronger. The sidelong glance Leo gave him on hearing that was one Peter was used to.

“And not content with acquiring Pandora’s Box last November, the Los Angeles City Council has now voted to demolish it!” shouted another speaker from the platform space at the front of the room, a space more used for poetry readings and talks.

“There is no obvious reason for driving kids off the Strip after ten p.m. What the hell even is ‘loitering’?” called out Jac from the Sunset Strip Association, organizing this meeting as the Right of Assembly and Movement Committee had organized the demonstrations last year, protests the press had been encouraged to dub ‘riots’.

 _Loitering. Standing, walking, or driving idly or aimlessly._ Yeah, just _being_ , Peter supposed. Making the place look untidy, his father might have called it. Thinking of him led Peter to something else his father was wont to say, when getting to the _why_ of a matter: c _ui bono,_ rephrasing it, when Peter or his brothers had been puzzled by the words as children, as _cui prodest?_ More erudite than helpful. _Father in a nutshell._

But asking who benefited or profited from ridding the Strip of the kids who hung out there pointed the finger at the Sunset Strip Chamber of Commerce, a body made up of fat-cat property landlords and owners. Peter shuffled the leaflets on a ledge next to him and found that one—he’d helped draw it up, researching the members of that organization…and how much they donated to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, enabling them to pressurize the sheriff to enforce a curfew—and clear the street.

A brief look out of the coffee shop windows showed Peter a blur of tan and green: the deputies lining up.

“Better them than the cops,” Leo muttered.

Was it? Peter didn’t know, having had run-ins with both. The police had jurisdiction over the city, which started a block or so down, and he’d probably be seeing both sets of law enforcement if the march they’d been discussing to the city limits went ahead. Staring, he thought he detected a blue uniform at the very back of the almost-khaki ranks gathering out there and awareness rippled down his spine. The creeping presence of the sheriff’s men seemed to electrify the café, with half a dozen conversations breaking out and theories and rumors flying.

“They just wanna develop the Strip, man!” Peter heard from near the front. Well, sure, the real estate was valuable. He put more credence in that than the idea that mobsters were moving in, that once clubs were deprived of teen clientele, they’d become girly venues; gangsters muscling in to set up more adult entertainment and services.

“…new office district, all bland and heartless,” Jac was saying. “That, plus the new freeway—” That made the muttering and mumbling rumble like thunder.

“Not once we fucking stop it!” came in a southern drawl from just behind Peter at the back, a smoke-tinged voice Peter knew well and that had him shifting to see the speaker. “What we’re here for, ain’t it? So get the fuck out here and let’s start, man!” The guy twanged a few hard chords on his guitar and turned to lead the way outside.

“Stephen!” Peter called, just behind him once he got out into the street, and his friend spun around, his face lightening into a jagged-toothed grin. “Wondered when you’d show.”

“Oh, man! Don’t— Yeah, we just got here.” Stephen slung his guitar around to his back to throw his arms open wide and grab Peter into one of his mountain-man hugs.

Peter hadn’t seen him in a week or so and clasped him back, shoving his hands into Stephen’s pockets in the way that always made Stephen laugh, and enjoying as always the buzz of Stephen’s unique laidback livewire energy. “Just arrived and taking over, marshalling us all out?” Peter inquired.

Stephen’s laugh was a rasp and he re-settled his knocked-askew wide-brimmed, high-crowned hat on his dark blond hair. “Someone’s gotta get this show on the road, man.”

And it was a show, or rather concert, free of course, and at which Stephen’s group confederates were headlining. “Save our Sunset Strip,” Peter said, keeping his tone neutral.

“Hey.” Stephen’s was sharper. “I care about this street. It’s where we hang out, where we hear music, where we play. Where we work.” He signaled _wait_ to his fellow group members, just ahead and inside the small cordoned-off square. “Yeah, I never got much into the activism until that jerk-off bread-head county supervisor started all this proposed Laurel Canyon Freeway bullshit as well. A fucking freeway through the mountains, from the San Fernando Valley to the airport, blasted through the Canyon? That’s _whack_ , man!”

“A stone bummer.” Peter leaned down to tighten a string on Stephen’s guitar, making Stephen tsk as he slapped Peter’s hand away to loosen it again to his liking. “And you did good.” Peter indicated the makeshift stage, where the group and other musicians, all residents of Laurel Canyon, would be playing. He laughed, imagining Stephen going door to door, demanding the canyon’s residents participate in the concert to raise awareness and mobilize opposition—and not taking _maybe_ , much less _no_ , for an answer. “I still really dig your plan to get the Canyon known as the musician’s equivalent of Beverly Hills.”

“And _well_ -known. It will be—the press love me, _cher_. Well, the music press…” Stephen flashed a grin at the brunette features writer from KRLA Beat and shot a wink at the blonde assistant to the boss jock from KHJ, reminding Peter of Davy. Funny—Stephen usually put him more in mind of Michael. Stephen switched topics, in that jump-tracks way of his to ask, “And you’re okay playing banjo on that number?”

“I was about to ask _you_ if it was okay to have _me_ playing with you.” Peter eyed the musicians waiting to play. “Seeing as I’m not in the right ZIP Code…” The slap Stephen landed to the back of his shoulder made him stagger, then laugh.

But Peter didn’t get the chance to join the group and play, just as the group didn’t get to finish their set, or any other musicians take the stage. Two songs in, a young red-faced deputy handed something to Mitch, the manager of the Hear Say, and he cut into the set between songs to announce, his voice shaking with disbelief, that he’d just been informed was a ‘problem’ with the permit they’d obtained for this outdoor performance, meaning the gathering constituted disturbing the peace and unlawful assembly “and a whole buncha other crapola stuff,” he finished, shaking the citation he’d been given. Boos and hisses drowned the rest of his words, not aimed at him, of course. He assured them his lawyer was on it, fighting it even as they spoke.

“Let’s march while he gets this crushed,” called someone from the Right of Assembly and Movement Committee. “That way there ain’t no ‘failure to disperse’!” Within seconds, the mass of people was flowing east toward Crescent Heights, walking down the middle of the road, a row of deputies hemming them in on either side like moving tan-uniformed fenceposts.

If it wasn’t an unlawful assembly before, it rapidly became one. Peter reflected on some of the wording of that law of ‘doing something legal, but in a violent, boisterous or tumultuous manner’, when the deputies pushed away any of the swell of people who overflowed onto the sidewalks, coming too close to them—and were pushed back in turn. Half a dozen skirmishes broke out at once, all around, and within half a minute separate sections of the protestors were being advanced on, marched down, the deputies spreading out to circle and corral the activists, dividing and conquering.

“Fucking pigs!” Stephen yelled, from somewhere behind Peter. “Anyone’s inciting a riot it’s you shitheads!”

Peter swung around to him, catching a flash of the very dark blue uniform he’d seen earlier. LAPD Navy, the color was known as. Very original. His senses flared. Before Peter could work his way back to Stephen, the bubble of people around him surged, their energy and momentum buoying him along with them for a few yards or so, until they passed a side street on the left. Were where they? Past Clark was as near as he’d gotten to working it out when he was grabbed him from behind and wrenched away from the rushing, jostling crowd, the movement sudden and swift, catching him by surprise.

“Hey!” He tried to resist, to turn, to pull free, to shove back, but nothing worked—he was dragged up the street and pushed against a wall. _It’s the street with the big parking lot on the corner_ , he belatedly realized, _and this is the entrance to the lot_. The mob was only a few yards away, below on the street, and still tumultuous, but somehow the relative silence was deafening.

A hand on the back of his head kept him facing the blank wall, stopped him turning to see his captor. Arms in the short-sleeved dark blue uniform, finishing in hands encased in leather gloves, took his wrists and pressed his hands flat against the rough stone. Feet in black boots pushed his ankles apart to spread his legs. It took seconds…and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. And when those strong, leather-gloved hands started to pat him down, Peter gasped.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead into the stone when those hands made their way up the insides of his legs, passing his knees to grope the tops of his thighs. The thrill that had been coursing through his bloodstream ever since he’d arrived on the Strip was thrumming now. The hands were removed before he could gulp out any _searching for a concealed weapon_ quip, as if their owner knew.

“Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” he asked, his face still turned into the wall.

“Oh, you’re not being arrested. Just…detained.” The cop spoke in a low, slow voice, his hot breath on Peter’s nape telling Peter he was pressing closer, close enough for the spice and musk of his cologne to envelop Peter, although Peter had no warning of what the guy was doing until his arms were removed from where they’d been placed on the wall either side of his head, pulled behind him, and metal cuffs circled around his wrists to click shut. “See? Arrested would be a ba-billy club here.”

 _Here_ was across Peter’s throat, the cop demonstrating by pressing the side of his slim hand against Peter’s windpipe. He did have a billy club—Peter felt it against his leg where it hung from the cop’s belt. He was so close. If he’d been in front of Peter, he’d have been near enough to feel the bulge Peter’s cock was making in his jeans. _Fuck._

“No, this is nice and easy,” the cop continued, still slow and unhurried, still low, but with an edge of…not _menace_ , exactly. _Not yet._ “Or it can be. It could get rough. Depends on you. Because all I want to do is talk to you. Got a couple of things to ask you.”

Peter squinted around the side of his face a little, wanting to catch at least a glimpse of his captor. He saw a regulation police hat—instead of the white hard-shelled riot helmet he’d half-expected—pulled low, and reflective aviator glasses obscuring the officer’s eyes and almost half his face. “Ask me?” he repeated.

“You’re a member of that Community Action for Facts and Freedom Committee, aren’t you?” The cop had a hard edge to his voice.

“Yes…” Peter had surprise in his. “And of course, in line with my constitutional rights, namely freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition, I certainly won’t reveal any other member’s name, or inform you what we’re planning. Officer.” He added the title belatedly, and the hiss of indrawn breath in his ear told him the insult had registered.

“Not yet,” the cop responded, his tone equable. “You won’t be doing much talking at all, for a while in fact.”

Before Peter could ask what that was supposed to mean, the cop’s hands were at Peter’s mouth, passing a cloth around it and between his lips—to gag him. It wasn’t uncomfortably tight and didn’t cut into the corners of his mouth, but it was…there. He shoved backward and whipped his head around only for the cop to have a second swath of white cloth at the ready, to bind Peter’s eyes, blindfolding him.

“That’s better.” His abductor’s voice was still calm, still matter-of-fact. He could have been reacting to taking a drink of cool water on a hot day. “Now, let’s you and me go take ourselves somewhere nice and quiet and private where we can work things out. Negotiate what I want from you and what you’re…prepared to give me, give up without a struggle, like a good little boy.”

Unable to talk or see, prodded to walk by the business end of the billy club that was pushed into the small of his back, Peter stumbled on the asphalt. The trepidation he was feeling was doing little to dissipate the haze of arousal shimmering and thickening, enveloping him. He was righted by strong hands at his shoulders and greeted with a soft chuckle in his ear, one that said it understood what he was feeling. More than understood—was amused by. No— _pleased_ by.

The walk was short and ended at a car, against which Peter stumbled, sprawling over the…hood, he thought. Unable to see and with his hands cuffed behind him, he wasn’t sure. He also couldn’t break his fall, but the cop did, huffing out a slight laugh.

“Careful there. Plenty of time for that later.” His hand splaying on Peter’s back, flattening him over the car’s hood…explained his meaning. _No._ _He didn’t mean—did he?_ Peter tested his understanding, his _imagining_ , by rearing back a little—just a little—to be pressed flat again, the cop’s tall body firm between his spread legs.

The cop brought him up slowly, bringing his top half close, and kept him there while he opened a car door for Peter to enter. Those gloved hands helped him into the backseat so he didn’t bang his head, then pushed at his shoulder until he lay flat. Yes, wouldn’t do to have him visible at a window. While the handcuffs were presumably standard cop kit, regulation issue, the gag and blindfold…not so much. He tried to follow the direction they were taking. Up and away from the Strip, rather than down to Sunset, he assessed, but couldn’t get his bearings, not with his eyes covered. If the windows had been open, the various scents and smells of the city might have signposted his journey for him, but they were closed and that potent woody, herbal, leather fragrance of the cop’s cologne filled the car…and Peter’s senses.

It was a brown sort of scent. Peter took another sniff, cataloging the shades of that color that it invoked. Burnt umber, raw umber, wood brown. Even some orange hues, like burnt orange, or tiger’s eye. _Better the sheriff’s deputies than the chief’s cops_ , Leo had said, or something like it, a little earlier. The deputies’ uniforms, that tan and olive drab, used military associations for their authority, whereas the police’s dark blue echoed the black of ministers and priests, borrowing legitimacy from a different kind of force. Maybe it _was_ better. Musing on the psychology of uniforms had Peter shifting where he lay.

“You doing all right back there?” came the low, careful voice from the front.

Peter merely nodded.

Nothing further was exchanged until the car pulled in somewhere and was parked, then the doors to the place locked behind them and Peter helped out. To his surprise, the gag and blindfold were removed. He blinked, trying to adjust his sight, but it was difficult when he stood in the pool of pale light cast by a lamp somewhere and when there wasn’t much to focus on in the dark room. No, _garage_. “Not an official station or jail,” he remarked, testing the cuffs behind his back. “So you aren’t charging me officially.”

“What with?” The cop’s next move, springing into the circle of lamplight he’d set up and delving into Peter’s pockets, was so sudden that it took him by surprise and had him fighting a squirm. “ _This_?” the man finished, bringing up a half-ounce of pot Peter had picked from Stephen’s pocket a little earlier. “No need to ask what this is.”

“Dope,” Peter agreed. “You want the exact strain?”

“You want this on your record?” the cop batted back, stepping a shade nearer. “It could make life difficult, right? Getting jobs, renting houses, traveling…anything, with a police record.”

“Maybe.” _Yes._

“So maybe you’d be amenable to…let’s say…workin’ off your charges. _Un_ official, like.”

“I don’t…” His confinement suddenly felt too real, the shuttered garage too shadowy, his captor too…there, the mirrored sunglasses keeping his reactions unreadable.

“Yeah you do, boy. You strike me as the unofficial type. Like, open to different routes.” His captor was crowding him. _Overwhelming_ him. “I thought that when I saw you in the crowd. When I saw you watching me too.”

“I—” Peter decided not to deny it. “Maybe.”

That brought a smile to the cop’s face…and brought him near enough that their hard-ons touched. “Yeah, you’re not gonna talk, so we’re gonna do something else with your mouth,” he said and, with a suddenness Peter again wasn’t expecting, sat down on a chair just on the edge of the glow of light, and in the same movement, pushed Peter to his knees between his booted legs.

The floor wasn’t hard—Peter landed on fabric folded double, soft under him, and his knee pressed on a bulge in the corner near him, pressed on it and made it squeak because some sort of squeaky ball was lodged in the fold of the blanket or cloth.

“Three times,” came softly from the cop and when Peter looked up, to nod his understanding, his abductor, gloves cast aside, unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, rock hard and reddened, even in the muted light. His cock was huge, both in thickness and length, and he gave it a single hard stroke that had fluid pearling at the tip. “Heh. No need to ask if you like what you see. You’re _drooling_ there, kid.”

Was he? Peter went to dip his chin onto his shirt, to catch any dribble escaping, but never made it. Not when the cop’s free hand slid into Peter’s hair and clenched into a fist, yanking Peter forward until his lips were a breath away from his cock.

“Open up,” he commanded. Then his hand tightened in Peter’s hair and he slid his cock into Peter’s mouth. The taste hit Peter first, the warm-salt and warmer-tang, and he closed his eyes to savor it.

“ _No._ ”

The bite in the order had him opening his eyes.

“Yes. Eyes open. Oh, and don’t think this is you giving me head. No. This is _me_ fucking your throat.”

If Peter had been confused, or under any illusions, the thick cock driving to the back of his throat fucked them out of him. He didn’t have much of a gag reflex after six months with Michael—hadn’t had much of one anyway—but was glad to suck in a quick breath when the cop withdrew. He only had a second before the guy drove forward again, burying his cock deep in Peter’s throat, and holding it there, holding Peter still by clenching his hands tight in the roots of Peter’s hair.

“’S’right. ’S’how I like it,” his jailor praised on a slow hiss, and this time Peter coughed when the guy pulled back, dragging in air and struggling to see through watering eyes—to get a half-second’s grace before it was back, the guy this time thrusting for longer than before, and the next time longer still. Wet slaps and dry coughs filled the air from where Peter’s face was buried in the stranger’s crotch, his throat impaled on his cock.

Not content with forging deeper, his abductor picked up speed to go faster, too, his hands a hard prison around Peter’s head. Peter focused on timing his breaths to the thrusts, trying to ignore the painful, insistent throb of his own erection that was growing heavier each time he was forced to take the dick down his throat.

“Seeing as you’re taking me so well…”

Peter tensed—the words, spoken over his head in a dark tone, didn’t sound like a compliment. More like a warning, issued a split-second before a gritted-out “Let’s see how good you really are,” accompanied the hard push into his mouth that made him open his jaw: and a relentless buck of the cop’s hips had his cock tunneling deep—and staying there.

“That’s it, hold it,” he ground out, his fingers iron bars on Peter’s scalp, keeping him imprisoned on his huge cock blocking his airway. “Hold me deep. _Fuck_ , kid. You’ve had some– _ah_ —practice at cock-sucking. Not many people can take me how I like it.”

Peter couldn’t breathe, his face buried, his throat convulsing around the stranger’s invading length, fighting the need for oxygen and trying to prevent a moan escaping. He had reasonable breath control, a necessity in surfing, when wiping out big hurled him deep underwater, not knowing which way was up, so he couldn’t inhale. But this… His vision dimmed, blood pounded in his brain, as loud as the ocean, and his position, isolated in this place, on his knees, his hands cuffed behind his back, at the mercy— _read whims_ —of this stranger… Adrenaline had propelled him on this course but now his central nervous system took a dive.

Choking made his sense of self-preservation kick in. He might not have as much of that as the average person but he possessed enough to make him lift a knee to bring it down and make the rubber ball in the blanket under him squeak three times…just as the man pulled free, releasing Peter. Peter heaved in a painful, rusty saw of a breath, his gaze fixed on the obscene string of spit trailing from his bottom lip to the guy’s dick.

Now he moaned, staring at the still-erect cock, inches away, then up into the now-uncovered eyes of the man holding him prisoner. They both stared. Assessing. _Waiting_.


	14. January, 1967 part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ABJECT filth with a joke at the end. Just the thing for a Monday morning, right?

The other guy was the first to move. He worked his cock, shiny with saliva and the precum Peter had swallowed, his eyes on Peter. Peter was amazed the man wasn’t coming where he sat. Peter practically was. His shoulders pulling against the bonds imprisoning his wrists told him he’d tried to bring his hands to the front. Because if he had the use of his hands, he could make the guy come. Could wreck his control, the iron will he was using to keep his climax at bay. Could…get his hands on that cock, the cock he wanted to suck in deep once more.

And the cop knew, if the hollow laugh he gave was any indication. He took a long pull at his engorged cock, smoothing it from root to tip. “You like that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Peter rasped, surprised at how harsh his voice was, although he shouldn’t have been, not when his throat was raw from the pounding it had taken.

“Yes what?” hissed the stranger.

Peter remained silent, a little puzzled.

“Yes, sir,” he was instructed.

He hadn’t known he was going to do it, and his knee lifted without conscious thought to come down on the rubber ball tucked into the blanket, once, twice, three times. All movement in the garage ceased and silence beat, thick and heavy. The guy broke eye contact and his head dipped in what could be taken as a nod.

“I see,” he murmured. “So, never had it as strong as that before?”

Peter shook his head, swallowing and working his tongue around the thick, full taste and feel of his captor still in his mouth. A second later he almost fell sideways, taken again by surprise by this man, who this time leaned down and kissed him, hard and biting on Peter’s swollen lips.

“You’re good for more?” came more mockingly than caringly. “Because I think you need to get fucked real bad. Or should I say, real _good_. Real hard, too.”

“I…”

“Want it so bad you can taste it,” the guy finished for him when he hesitated, finishing his assertion by rubbing his cock along Peter’s thickened lips, his action rough and brusque, almost a slap. It had Peter’s eyes opening wide and his lips parting too late to flick out his tongue to the tip of the cock before it was withdrawn. _Withheld._ “Oh. You _like_ that.”

Peter had no chance to parse, much less respond to the note of discovery in the cop’s voice before the man rose and took Peter from his knees to stand with him. It didn’t matter that Peter’s balance was off—not when he was spun around and— _God!_ —bent over the still-warm hood of the car that had brought him here. Not when the cuffs keeping his wrists behind his back were wrenched undone and dropped onto the concrete floor with a loud metallic clink.

As Peter raised his torso and shook out his arms, an instinctive response to being freed from the position he’d been in for a while, the cop’s arms came around his body from either side to press his hands onto the metal of the car’s front for him. “Assume the position,” was breathed behind him. Then, seemingly satisfied with Peter’s compliance, with the obedient curve of his body, fingers yanked at the fastenings of his jeans and pulled them down. _Down enough_ , Peter’s brain registered, thrilled when his bare ass rubbed against the guy’s still-erect dick. It rubbed because Peter was pressing back.

“Yeah. Desperate for it,” his captor said, his voice neutral, not a gloat or a condemnation, but a summing up. “You got a great ass, kid. Gonna enjoy getting it ready. Warming it up.”

Peter tensed, then stifled a moan of pleasure when those slim but strong hands rubbed his flesh. The moan stopped in his throat when he realized those hands were moving slowly and methodically, to make sure they covered the entirety of his cheeks, massaging the whole of his ass—warming it up, as the cop had said. As in, warming up the skin, bringing blood to the surface in preparation…for more. For what came _next_.

He tried not to but he jerked when the cop slapped one cheek, then the other. They weren’t hard blows, mere warm-ups, as he’d been promised. Peter was proud he managed to bite back any moan that wanted to escape his lips, but he couldn’t help but push back into the hands prepping his skin. Something told him his captor wouldn’t censure him for him. Sure enough, a smoky-dark snicker hit his ear…and made him shiver.

“You’re sure eager to go,” came in a murmur. “I’d say it’s a pleasant surprise, but I saw that in you soon as I saw you, in the crowd. Could see even then you weren’t wearing shorts under those tight jeans. What, you always ready for it?” The spank that landed on his cheek this time was harder. “Guess that wide-eyed blond cherub act’s just that, huh? An act.” And this slap was a little more stinging. “Well, it got me revved, like I’m guessing it was designed to.”

Peter answered by pressing his face down into his hands and angling his hips back, trying to get his already burning ass in a better position. God, this was… He didn’t have words for the impacts that shook him to the core, for the jolts of heat they brought with them, for the way those caught fire in his veins. In his _blood_. He stuck out his ass a notch higher.

“Cheeky little brat,” commented the cop. “Like things your own way, I see.” He brought his hand down. _Hard._ “Well, I’m the leader here. Not _you_.” The slap to the other cheek of Peter’s ass underscored that. The guy rubbed at the sting in between blows. “Be a good boy and I’ll be good to you.”

Peter registered the slight coolness to the air hitting his heated skin when the guy stepped back. He felt the loss immediately but there was no time to muse on it, not when the slow, dark voice said, “You’re warmed up nice. Now you got a choice to make.” The man paused, making Peter hold his breath for the next words: “Belt or crop?”

Words that shot as much liquid heat through his veins as the spanking had. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer.

“Belt it is, then,” came from behind and above him. “Kid, you got a lucky number?”

 _Thirteen_ , he didn’t say. _Eleven_ , as well, now there was himandMichael, and he wouldn’t say that either.

“Looks like six of the best, then.” The cop answered his own question. “And they will be the best, believe me.”

Peter…did. A little _snizz_ of sound reached his ears, and it took him a few seconds to place it, although it was something he heard probably every day, both made by himself and by Michael, that he heard now they lived together, sharing a room. The sound was a leather belt, being slowly pulled from its loops. He wanted to turn, to see the action that was making the sharp almost _crack_ noises that came next, but could see it well enough in his imagination: his jailor pulling the strip of leather taut in his hands, quickly enough to make it sing.

And God, how he flinched when the belt tapped his inner thigh, leaving a warmth where it touched, as if from the man’s body heat.

“Spread your legs.”

“They are.”

 _Not enough._ The leather came down, this time hard enough to sting, and his jeans, even though they rested low on his shins, were tugged from him, roughly enough to almost topple him over.

“I said, spread your legs. Don’t make me ask again.” He felt the fleece of the blanket nudged nearer to his foot, knew the corner housing the squeaky ball must be next to him. He planted his feet wide apart, wanting to shiver, and not necessarily because the heated flesh between his legs was exposed to the cooler air.

“Count ’em.”

He’d opened his mouth to stupidly, unnecessarily, ask _what?_ when the first lash hit. It echoed, sharp, distinct, sending fire scorching across his skin, although he betted the guy hadn’t put his full power into it. Peter shoved his fingers into his mouth to hold in the sharp cry that wanted to jolt from him, to rent the air, and gasped out, “One.”

“Good boy,” said the other man, unseen in the dim light behind him, and then the belt fell again.

“ _Two,_ ” Peter managed, his fists clenched on the hood of the car and his nails digging into his palms.

“You’re doing this well too. Gotta wonder how much practice you get…what you get up to. So I’m going to go harder, now. Keep counting.” And the man, the practiced sadist, left a pause, so Peter had no idea when the blow would strike—until it did. And yes, it was harder, feeling more so as it landed just were the previous one had

“Three.” Peter tried to breathe through the pain, the fire. _Crack_ came the next, under that, at the tender crease of his thigh _._ “Four.” This was too much. Too many. Too hard. Too powerful. Too precise. He had to— _Crack._ “F-five.” Sweat poured from his face, his brow, where it pressed into his clenched hands, hard enough to force them through the metal of the car’s hood. His foot twitched, searching for the ball, to signal— _Crack_. “Six!” His voice was high-pitched, and relief poured from him along with the sweat, making him feel light. Light-headed, anyway.

The pause that came had him tensing. “Oh, you thought that was it? No, boy, that’s just the first round!” A hand groped his ass, adding flame to the fire. “Because I wanna see how much you can take… _before you break._ ”

The last three words were mere ghosts of whispers, but Peter caught them. Caught and trapped them where he was bent over, shuddering, his bare thighs trembling and slick with sweat, his ass burning, aching. The light darkened then bloomed as the man moved to stand beside Peter, crouching to see his face. Peter tilted his head enough to look into the stranger’s eyes. _Go on_ , he signaled, or hoped he did, with his gaze and the angle of his head—he didn’t trust his voice to speak without cracking. His skin was on fire, sure, but more burning than the heat brought by the strokes of the leather belt was the desire to be pushed beyond his limits. Or more correctly, what he _thought_ were his limits.

The cop studied him, assessing, understanding, then nodded and straightened. “Fine. You know what to do.”

Peter closed his eyes, willing his muscles to unlock, his body to accept the fire, to absorb it and let it fire _him_. He obeyed the soft, low, “Breathe in, and out,” exhaling as the belt fell. “Seven,” escaped on a hiss, the pain and heat landing worse after the long pause there’d been since the last blow. The next spread them further. “Eight.”

The heat was a part of him now, living in him, uncurling through every muscle from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair, bearing him away. He didn’t recall counting out the next two numbers, but must have done because no complaints came from the man wielding the leather belt with such expertise and precision. Peter almost wished he could see him, see his muscles flexing, his arm moving through the semi-dark.

“ _Eleven._ ”

This was a chorus, the cop joining in too to say the word with him, his tone giving it a meaning when words had almost lost all meaning to Peter. Giving it a finality too, underscored by the dull thud of the belt hitting the floor. Then hands were on his abused ass, stroking and soothing and that low, slow voice was at his ear, almost crooning, letting fall words of praise. Peter shook when lips ghosted over his earlobe, in a way he hadn’t while taking the belt.

“You did so fucking well, kid. Took that beautifully. And that ass…” It seemed words failed his captor.

Still bent over, burning from the fire coursing through him, Peter smiled, only to shudder as he was drawn upright by careful hands, hands that stroked his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead and face, brushing away the strands where they clung to him, sodden with sweat and tears. “How we doing?”

“Okay.” _Fine. Glorious. Floating._ He thought the last word might have been a question, asked by the experienced man behind him, so nodded in answer. He was, despite his aching, painful cock, hard with the urgent need to come. He turned into the hand that was cradling his face, let the fingers stroke his lips.

“You got such a clever mouth on you. I’d love you to be swallowing me down…”

But he had, hadn’t he? _Oh._ Peter waited, because the rest of the sentence, when it came, would be—

“…when you’re getting your ass plowed from behind.”

 _Shocking._ Yet he listened eagerly, seeing the picture being painted, the description of hard thrusts in his ass pushing him forward onto the stranger’s dick, see if _that_ would make him gag. No. That…he wouldn’t. That wasn’t something— Cooler air on his torso made him realize his T-shirt had been stripped from him, leaving him naked while the cop was dressed. He must have zoned out. _Floated out._ He went to turn, to face the stranger, but jerked when something warm yet leathery slipped down his back. A hand, wearing a leather police uniform glove. A gloved finger slid down the cleft of his ass, avoiding the stinging, burning flesh…to his hole.

He jerked. Couldn’t not when that gloved, lubed finger pushed deep inside him, making him gasp in shock, then cry out as it rubbed over his prostate, threatening to spin him into a short, fast orgasm. Michael was so good at fucking him, he could ask Peter how often he wanted his prostate stimulated—every third stroke, every second, every time. This, though, was no ask-and-answer, no negotiation…no choice. Just hard swift pain-pleasure and a strong gloved hand around the base of his leaking cock.

“Are you coming already?” the man demanded.

Peter’s groan, the pumping of his hips and the clenching of his ass around the intrusion spoke for him.

“ _No._ ” Like before, the snap to the command stopped him. The finger jerked free, and that hand pulled his heavy, swollen balls from his body, the grip as tight as the other hand around his cock, to head off his climax. “You come with me inside you,” the stranger explained, nudging the directive into Peter’s ear, his teeth tugging at the lobe.

He released the lobe to press his chin between Peter’s shoulder blades, making it clear Peter should bend forward again, a higher curve this time, his hands again in front of him, then draped over Peter to whisper, “Because I’m going to fuck you wide open, boy,” at the same time as his cock forged in an inch.

Peter shoved his face into his upper arm in time to muffle his scream. His mouth open, pressing into his own flesh, he bit down to hold in the cry when the cop’s hand cracked down on his burning ass…and he rammed in deeper. He couldn’t stifle his yell when the man slid forward another few inches, seating himself fully, and in doing so pressing against the red-hot, burning-hot skin of Peter’s abused ass. It ignited flares throughout his body, sizzling every inch of nerve and sinew and skin.

“Steady…” came in a warning tone, making him realize he’d been struggling, fighting against this. His asshole spasmed as it adjusted to the huge cock tunneling deep. Michael hadn’t fucked him for a few days, and he’d tightened up. The hands around his balls and dick gripped hard. “Can’t have you goin’ off like a rocket.” The cop’s tone was breathier, juddering. That he was affected too made Peter proud.

With a final push, he was all the way in, fully seated, his groan long and guttural. “That’s it. My cock in your ass, boy. And I’m gonna fuck you right through your release. How’s that sound?”

 _Terrifying._ _Amazing._ Peter could barely breathe, much less reply. The man pulled out slowly, the drag of his cock making Peter shudder, then pushed back in. Then again, just a little faster, and then he’d found a rhythm and was fucking Peter hard, his hips slamming into him and his balls smacking against Peter’s flesh, the slaps echoing in the small room as loud as the strokes from the belt.

Peter’s arms could hardly support him, the way he shuddered and shook with every thrust. His climax was more than building. It was _there_ , fighting to get free, urged by every snap of the stranger’s hips, by every stab of his thick cock over that gland deep inside Peter—and curtailed by every squeeze of those gloved hands around his balls and dick. His pleasure literally in the guy’s hands, he was the man’s plaything. It was cruel. Inhumane. _Glorious_.

It was too much and he heaved in a breath to say so when the hand pulling at his balls loosened and the other hand moved from the base of his dick to work it in hard, tight strokes, fast, sure, the sound dirty and wet and _animal._

“You still speak?” was gasped behind him.

“Yesss,” he just about answered.

“Then say, ‘I love your cock in my ass.” The cop punctuated his order with a thrust of his hips, one that made Peter groan.

“I-Ilove your cock inmyass,” he got out, his fractured speech lending credence to the words.

‘“No one fucks my ass as good as you.’ Say it loud, boy.”

“No one fucks my ass as good as you!” That half-yelp, half-shriek—was it his voice?

And oh Jesus, the pressure on that patch just under the head of his cock, the relentless rubbing on his prostate—Peter lost touch with sound and sight as everything, _everything_ , gathered and exploded, stealing him away from _everything_ except for the man still buried deep in him, his hand milking Peter’s cock of every last drop of cum it had to give. Seconds later, seconds that felt like minutes to the sweat-dripping, strung-out wreck that was Peter, the man shuddered and cried out, his cock throbbing and pulsing deep inside Peter as he came. But what had Peter’s legs folding under him was the guy biting his skin, the junction when his neck met his shoulder, hard, as he came.

“Leaving mymark onyou,” he got out, his gasps heating Peter’s skin more.

It was too much. Peter crumpled, pitching forward then sliding down the hood of the car to the floor. Arms came around him, making his journey slow enough not to cause any damage. “It’s all right. I’ve got you,” the man said. “I’ve got you.”

“I know. I know, Michael,” Peter rasped, rubbing the back of his head on Mike’s forehead, just behind him, a smile trying to crease his face when Michael placed the police uniform hat on Peter’s head.

He twisted and Mike turned him, turned them, both sweating and shaking like fever patients, until they were lying on the blanket, Mike’s gloves shed, their hands clasped, chests heaving, heads turned to one another, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Peter wondered if he looked as ruined as Mike. Probably more—he had his own cum splattered from his neck to his crotch, and Mike’s dripping from his ass down his legs. All the bits of him he could see were bright-red, and he was glad he couldn’t see what his ass looked like. Could feel it though.

My God,” they both said, voices hoarse and strained, Peter following up with a weak “Jesus Christ,” and Mike a feeble, “Judas Priest.”

Peter smiled, squirming to get comfortable. He tightened his hold on Mike’s hand when he went to stand, stopping him getting up no doubt for salve and water, washcloths and fresh clothes, more than probably all secreted on the garage’s shelves. “Hey.” Peter swallowed to bring moisture to his throat. “Michael. Happy anniversary.”

Mike got his shoulders up from the blanket, one at a time, the sight strange to watch, and leaned in for a kiss at those words, pulling back swiftly when Peter hissed at the pressure on his sore, puffy lips. “It was, right?” Mike whispered against them instead, his eyes shining a dark velvet brown.

“Oh yeah. _Is._ ” Peter twitched the hat back onto Mike’s head. He was the one wearing the uniform, after all.

“You’re _glowing_ ,” Mike announced proudly.

“So are you,” Peter retorted.

Mike huffed out a breath of a laugh as he strained to unfold the blanket from beneath them enough to cover them, Peter mostly. He was still nude, after all. He stretched out a long arm to get his fingertips to a can of soda, tucked under the workbench, and popped the top for Peter, who guzzled most of it in one long stream, offering it to Mike after. That Mike lay flat again after he’d drunk, rather than pulling Peter onto his side, to cuddle close, told Peter how much the scene had taken from him.

“Hey.” Peter recalled something. “You got that new hunting knife—I thought you were going to cut my clothes off me?”

“That sweet blue tee?” Mike shook his head, his fingers fumbling for Peter’s shirt, to cover him a little more. “It’s one of my favorites! You were gonna wear the T-shirt from the protest. _That_ I was gonna cut to ribbons.” He flicked his gaze toward a high shelf, where the knife was no doubt hidden. Peter betted he’d been practicing too. Would he find Mr. Schneider’s suit cut to pieces, when they went in, Mike blaming it on moths if anyone asked? “You didn’t wear it?”

“Oh, the campaign tees.” Peter recalled the topic of their conversation. His mind was still in free-float, with exhaustion stealing over it, to anchor it down but blank it more. “Yeah, we didn’t get them ordered in time,” he confessed.

“Huh.” Mike stroked a slow finger down Peter’s nose. “Well, this doesn’t count as both wearing costume then. We weren’t exactly a hippie and cop, so—”

“Naked hippie?” Peter widened his eyes and peered up through his bangs as he offered the exchange. He had no scruples.

“So you owe me.” Mike ignored his, what was it, innocent-cherub act to point a finger at him. “Owe me one costume, shotgun. And I want—”

“The bunny all-in-one,” Peter finished for him.

“Yeahhhh. The new one, with ears and tail.”

“’S’all I am, tail.” Peter’s resigned, long-suffering sigh ended in a giggle. He fished around for the soda can to see if a few drops remained. “And, _again_? Didn’t you get enough of it on your birthday and New Year’s last month?”

Mike’s arched-eyebrow _are you kidding me?_ look made him giggle again. “Fine… Birthdays and versaries.” Six months-verary, in fact. Six months since last July. Since they’d gotten together properly. Or improperly. His light-headedness had him sniggering at his own joke.

“And this July’s gonna be amazing too,” Mike promised. Sitting, he snagged a damp washcloth in a bag from a workbench drawer and wiped Peter down with it, helping him into his shirt after. Well, helping him sit up, first.

“Hmm.” Peter eyed him from around the sheet of wiping paper he’d torn from the roll to blot his face and neck with. “Is it going to be anything like your birthday fantasy? In which, in case you’ve forgotten—”

“Ain’t _never_ gonna forget that, sugar.” Mike zipped up his own pants and found Peter’s jeans for him

“In which I was chained, chained! Literally chained by a manacle! by one ankle to your bed, a sex slave giving you head for hours?” Yeah, he was dwelling on the details and liked the way Mike stood stock-still, eyes closed at their shared memory. “And why do all the scenarios include that, huh?”

“Only got yourself to blame there, being so fucken good at it.” Mike helped him to his feet.

“Funny, when you’re always saying it was you, that you ‘trained me up so good’. Owww!” Peter cried at Mike’s swat to his ass in retaliation for the impersonation, then made a _gotcha_ face when Mike looked contrite. His ass was hurting, yeah, but worth it to wrong-foot Mike like that.

“Okay. So ya got raw talent,” Mike replied.

“Talking of raw…” Peter patted a gentle hand to his still-burning ass. “Oh…” Reminded of a lost opportunity, he pouted.

Mike pushed his bottom lip in for him with an even-gentler finger. “What, babe?”

“I wanted to get more quips in,” Peter had to admit.

“Like, was I taking down your particulars.” Mike nodded in understanding.

“And when you got your cock out, I was going to say, ‘that’s never regulation equipment.’” Peter had no shame.

“Certainly ain’t regulation size,” came Mike’s boast.

“I _know_.” Peter rubbed his ass again. “Boy, do I.”

“Pete—”

“ _Michael._ ” He stroked Mike’s face, wanting to wipe the contrition from it. “I loved every minute.”

“Every… _inch_?” And Mike was back. Turning Peter around, he bent to wipe his ass and thighs. “ _Jeez!_ Oh, nothing, sugar. I got some cream here for you. And don’t riff on that.” He interpreted correctly Peter turning his head to look over his shoulder.

Peter shook his head. “Let’s get back into the pad. I need…” He trailed off. Mike would know what he needed, probably better than Peter himself did. Nodding, Mike helped him into his jeans. Peter coughed.

“Yeah. Let’s get you a hot drink for your throat. Some tea,” Mike amended before Peter could chop on that. He tidied up their…toys before they left the garage. “Micky and Davy said they were going to the store, didn’t they, get a few things for a meal later, celebrate? So there should be lemons and honey, soothe your throat.”

“Need to soothe my ass too.” Peter was kind of curious. “What’s it look like?”

“Oh, babe, it’s a thing of beauty! Skin unbroken—”

“Of course.”

“And neat red stripes overlaid with the prettiest pink blush.”

“You make it sound like a work of art.”

“Oh, it is.” Mike closed the garage door behind them. “Thought that from the first second I saw ya.”

Peter grinned over his shoulder, pushing open the door to the pad. “Well, this work of art needs some salve and a—”

“ _Surprise._ ”

Both Peter and Mike screamed at the greeting. Oh, not for the traditional reason, that the welcome was delivered by a house full of merry guests leaping out from hiding to shout it, but because it was whispered by Micky, his face pale…while a den full of frozen, unmoving people looked not so much surprised as…shocked. Stunned. _Traumatized_.

“ _Guests…_ ” Mike whimpered.

“ _Guests…_ ” Peter’s gaze ran over the neighbors, the Purdeys, the Homers, the Willises… “ _More guests!_ ” he whined, pointing a shaky finger from them to, _oh God_ , his parents? How? _Why?_

As if he’d rung a triangle, everyone unfroze and started talking at once, their voices strained and loud. Peter caught words, snippets… _cake, pizza rolls, fruit punch, conference in San Diego, thought we’d fly in and…surprise them._ And everyone was talking to one another and no one to them, much less meeting their eyes.

Peter thought about the garage’s soundproofing…or lack of. “Did they _hear_? Like, the belt and everything?” he gasped in Mike’s ear, flinching when Cait—his _grandmother_ was here?!—passed a pillow to Davy, who handed it to Micky, who held it out at arm’s length. To Peter.

“They heard. The belt and everything.” Mike’s confirmation was delivered in the tone of a man wondering if he could sneak out of the kitchen window and rejoin the air force, maybe under a fake name and identity. “’S’okay, sugar.” He patted Peter’s arm, then turned to face the room. “I can explain,” he announced.

“Can you? Can you _really_?” came in a burst from Peter’s father. He indicated them where they stood, Peter, holding on to the bureau for support, his shirt on backward, his feet bare and his jeans unbuttoned, and Mike…dressed as a cop.

“Yes, I can.” Mike took a breath. “Howdy, neighbors, friends, family. Mighty nice to see y’all.”

Peter wanted to close his eyes at how extra Southern Mike had gotten under pressure, but kept them open in support.

“Well, you see, we’ve been together six months now, so this is by way of being our halfversary.” Mike’s speech was a _lot_ shorter than usual.

Silence greeted it. Peter risked another look around, wishing he hadn’t when he caught Davy’s wince and Micky’s cringe.

“If that’s six months, what on earth are you going to do when it’s one _year_?” came a female voice, curiosity soaking it through.

“Ginia, don’t _ask_!” John thundered.

“I have a question?”

Now Peter did close his eyes, as did Mike, when Toby Willis-Dolenz stood, hand raised. They had to open them, though, as much as Peter might have wanted to keep his shut for ever.

“I thought Micky said ‘dress fancy’”—she smoothed down the silk gown she was wearing—“but what you actually said was ‘fancy dress’, right?” She pointed at Mike in his LAPD uniform. “You probably haven’t noticed, but I do sometimes get the wrong idea, I think.”

The silence that this met with was the loudest and thickest of them all so far.

“Well, fancy dress or dress fancy, every day’s a surprise with you, Michael,” Peter said at last.

“And you, darlin’. And you probably _have_ noticed, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” came Mike’s very satisfactory reply, as he pulled Peter in for a kiss.

They never worked out who led the applause—Mike suspected Cait; Peter…didn’t want to think—but it rang around the pad, turning into loud whoops and even louder cheers as they carried on kissing and didn’t stop.


End file.
